


Renegades

by qanterqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Medieval/fantasy au, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, abuse mention, demon!kravitz, fire breather! lup, for this sake we age elves like humans i suppose, fuck sazed even tho yall dont know yet, lion tamer!julia, performers au, slavery in here boys im sorry, snake charmer!lucretia, taako/sazed (not a good thing), with every chapter ill update the tags i know its vague right now, zendaya voice everybodys got an act
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-03-02 20:02:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 37,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13325481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qanterqueen/pseuds/qanterqueen
Summary: “I am Lup, your new Master, and you may address me as so.”“A good evening to you, Little Master. You may call me Kravitz. I have many titles, though I also harbour a feeling that you do not care to hear them.”Lup released Kravitz’s hand, immediately shoving her own hand deep inside her pocket. She stared at him sourly. “Do not call me Little Master.”“Then grow taller.” Kravitz replied.Lup and her contracted demon have one goal: to find Lup's brother, wherever he is.It's not going so well.





	1. Prologue

It was in an old cave, damp and rotten with the smell of burning sage, that Lup casted her first summoning spell.

She’d played with transmutation and defensive spells before-- the lifestyle she lived demanded it. She wasn’t a stranger to lighting a fire in the night to keep warm, or transmuting a stale piece of bread to taste better. Lup had scraped the bottom of the barrel a few times-- literally and metaphorically-- and she learned how to survive because of it. Stolen books helped her, as did the shadows that allowed her to slip into a master’s library late at night.

Never before, however, had she done summoning.

It was a practice deeply ignored in popular circles of magic users. She’d never even heard the correct term before-- in parties where she served drinks, no one brought up the subject when they languidly discussed new practices. Or, if they did, it was a single word-- _dark_ \-- and a pause in the air that followed, heavy and uncertain, before the subject was moved along. 

Lup had never considered summing magic. She’d never had a need to-- not until now, of course.

She angrily wiped at her eyes with her tattered sleeve and sniffled. The white chalk in front of her blurred with her tears. The sage that burned-- just for safety-- tickled her nose.

She was almost done, and when all was over she’d be safe. That’s what mattered.

The book that she stole warned her heavily against this particular summoning spell. It told her about the repercussions and the loopholes and how everything could go, in many different ways, horribly wrong. And she’d listened-- really, she did. 

But Lup was alone. And being alone was dangerous. She had only until sunrise to get this right and done, then she’d have to move. She’d already been caught stealing in this village twice and she was getting hungry.

She finished up her drawings and sat back on her heels, looking between the old book and the floor. It was the best she could get it-- it would have to do.

Lup stood, taking a few steps back and clutching the tome to her chest. The candles she had lit around the sigil gave her just enough light to read the book’s spell. She sniffed and swiped at her eyes again one last time before taking a deep breath and beginning.

When the first word passed from her lips a single candle went out.

The book told her sometimes that happened during rituals. It meant _they_  were listening.    

_ “To summon thee _

_ From the four points we call upon-- _

_ The Queen, Three Fates She loves; _

_ The destiny of the mortals we. _

_ To serve me I summon thy pow’r, _

_ A bind strong as the Winds _

_ We call thee, _

_ To show your scowl, your glow’r, _

_ As we honor thee. _

_ Thy presence be commanded, _

_ By the wraps of the sigil, _

_ From whence these hands deftly drew. _

_ We summon, you Demon, _

_ Beast of the Night, _

_ Queen’s guard, Queen’s message, _

_ And by this thy power grounded.” _

Her voice, made strong as she could manage, echoed and died in the cave. She didn’t look up from the book for a long moment, but she knew it had worked. Her breath swirled in front of her, present in the new chill. Only one candle was left, barely illuminating the words on the page.

Lup closed the book. She didn’t need to read the rest of the spell anyway. She’d read over this part many, many times.

“I am Lup, and you may address me as such. I am your new master. You shall serve me from this day forward until released.” Lup announced, her voice loud and clear-- it was important to be clear. Demons would look for any loopholes they could find. 

“Awful confident for a child, are you not?”

Lup swallowed thickly before looking up.

The spell worked. Excitement made her heart beat and fear ran her blood cold.

The demon before her had taken a mortal appearance, but even so she was intimidated. It was dressed in black-- a long overcoat, dark, heavy boots, and a cloak that flowed with feathers interwoven to the folds. Tall in build, with dark skin and a sharp, handsome face that looked at her with a sort of intrigued inquiry only achievable by a demon that knew it was much more powerful than its caster.

It had pointed ears, though not at long as hers, that poked through the extremely long, jet black hair framing its face. Fangs gleamed in the candlelight as it smiled at her maliciously. Its blue eyes, paled to a near white, looked her up and down.

Lup cleared her throat and dropped her book to the floor, keeping her gaze trained on the demon. The book said that the demon would try to intimidate the caster with its’ form. She’s sure it meant in a different sense of the word, but she _was_  intimidated. If she had saw this form in the marketplace she would have kept far, far away.

She couldn’t let the demon know. It would jump on any insecurities the moment she let her guard down-- the book said so, but it was common sense to know anyway.

“You are in my service. You cannot ask such questions.”

“I can do as I please.” The demon curled its lips wider, shoving its hands deep inside its coat pockets. “You look as if you have been upset, if I am _allowed_  such observations. Casting such powerful spells while emotionally charged is not wise, _Master_.”

It was trying to swindle a response from her. “I am aware of my position and what I have done.”

“Are you?” The demon kneeled, leveling its soulless eyes to hers. She hated looking directly at them, but she forced herself to keep its stare. “You are smart, is that it?”

“Smart enough to summon _you_.” Lup snapped, some of her formality dropping. She didn’t want to be mocked by this demon any more-- could she cast a silencing spell on a demon?

It laughed, its tongue running over the tips of its fangs. “Why did you call upon me, little Master? Scared of the dark? Need a friend, is that it?”

Demons couldn’t read minds. The book said so. “I am on a quest and I am alone. I need a bodyguard.”

“Quest?” It scoffed, standing again. Somehow having the demon stand was less intimidating than looking at it straight on. “You are a child. Where are your parents? Do they know you are here, summoning _demons_?”

“You are _not_  allowed to ask me personal questions.” Lup snapped, feeling the back of her eyes prickle. She wouldn’t give the demon any answers. That was important to do-- any leverage, the book said, the demon would use against its user. A toe out of line and she could be destroyed.

It was the promise of everything _else_  that kept her steadfast on the idea of summoning a demon, even despite the repercussions and cautions.

“I am. Though it is in your hands to answer.”

Lup wanted to shoot something back at it, but damn it, the demon was right. She kept silent instead. She wasn’t going to give this thing _any_  satisfaction.

“Silence? Fine.” It looked down at the sigil with a bored gaze. “I must admit, for a child your sigil is quite well done.”

Lup felt her heart freeze as it took the toe of its boot and rubbed out one of the lines.

“Though you might wish to use a protection spell on the sigil, should you summon anything again.” The demon stepped out of the circle and Lup took a reflexive step back. 

The icy blue eyes looked at her and crinkled with an amused smile. Nothing about this creature put Lup at ease. “Scared?”

“No,” She snapped, and though she tried her voice was not nearly as strong as she wanted it. Lup was ten years old-- there was only so much she could do to sound impressive. “You are _my_ demon, in _my_  service. You cannot physically harm me.”

“I am aware.” The creature still took a few steps forward but stopped when Lup moved to retreat further. It cocked its head at her in mocking confusion. “Well, then, why do you shy from me?”

“What are you doing?” She asked, feeling her breath quicken. 

The demon extended a hand towards her, just a few feet away. Its nails were dark and pointed like claws and Lup wondered if they had ever been stained with blood. “It is customary and courteous to greet Masters. We shall be spending much time together-- until you dismiss me, of course.”

“I don’t trust you.” She said, looking at the hand. Its nails gleamed and shone with the candle’s light. 

“I am physically incapable of harming you.” The demon responded, flashing another mocking smile. With every glint of its fangs she grew more and more uneasy. “I was under the impression you knew this. Or that, at least, your summoning tome had told you.” It glanced at the book laying on the floor briefly before turning those unnerving eyes back on her.

Lup felt herself bristle. She’d already slipped up, hadn’t she? 

With legs that felt quite weak she moved forward and grasped at the demon’s hand. It felt as cold as its eyes looked. The demon’s lips curled.

“I am Lup, your new Master, and you may address me as so.”

“A good evening to you, Little Master. You may call me Kravitz. I have many titles, though I also harbour a feeling that you do not care to hear them.”

Lup released Kravitz’s hand, immediately shoving her own hand deep inside her pocket. She stared at him sourly. “Do _not_  call me Little Master.”

“Then grow taller.” Kravitz replied.

“I don’t like you.” Lup said, and it was supposed to be a warning to him. She _did_  have power over him-- power that could make him hurt. Power to keep him in check.

He knew this. He must have. But he shrugged to her tone, looking absently around the cave. “Most people do not feel particularly towards demons, no.”

Lup watched him take a few steps towards the exit of the cave, leaning out of the entrance and looking around. He surveyed the area for a few moments before turning around, wandering back towards her. 

She took a few steps back, keeping her eyes on him. Just because he couldn’t harm her that didn’t mean she trusted him.

He kneeled down in the dirt a few feet away from her, gingerly grabbing the dropped book and holding it to his face. He sat, apparently not caring about how dirty his coat became. 

Kravitz opened the cover with the tip of his nail, gently picking up each page with two fingers as if he could break the book with anything more. He looked at each page thoughtfully, his unblinking gaze drifting over the words lazily before looking at something new.

It was very lackluster.

“What are you doing?” Lup asked after a few minutes, with less bite in her voice than she wanted there to be. 

“Reading.” He said, flipping another page. 

“You can’t… can demons cast spells?”

She took a few careful steps towards him, straining to look over his shoulder. He was on a page that described how to write sigils to ward off vampires.

“No.” His gaze paused on the page. “However, you have not set me a job, or terms, and we have not moved-- so I must assume you live in this cave and have no other thing to do at the moment. So I am reading.”

“Oh.”

Well… that makes sense.

“Is this a trick?” She asked, looking at his face for any sign of hesitancy. “Are you just trying to get me to lower my guard? Demons do that.”

Kravitz looked up at her and grinned. When he was sitting down they were eye-level with each other. She wondered if she’d ever get used to his unnerving gaze. “Biased, are we?”

“Answer me.”

He sighed, a little dramatically, and flipped another page. She _really_  didn’t like him or his snark. “Why would you summon me if you will not trust me? I am offended.”

“Are all demons assholes like you?”

Kravitz paused and laughed again, his tongue slipping between his fangs. “With any luck, you will never know.”

She didn’t know what he meant by that, and she never found out.

Lup moved away from him, sitting a few yards off and drawing her knees to her chest. She spent hours watching him and he never moved-- just kept turning pages delicately, absently looking at the content within the book, even when the last candle finally blew out.

He was a poor replacement for Taako. But he was temporary.

Kravitz would fight for her and he would keep her safe and that was enough.

 


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here and I'm excited!!  
> I think I'm going to do something fun with the tags-- for each chapter that comes out I will write in what tags are accumulated from that chapter in the notes (beginning or end, whichever fits)! it'll just be a little fun stopper for the chapter, if that makes sense??  
> anyway, enjoy!!

The marketplace of this particular town was one of Lup’s favorite places to be. Though the sun was at its worst here, not obstructed by the surrounding forest’s foliage, and the air was typically dry and dead, she felt it was the best place for her performances.

It was the trading post for this town-- Phandalin, it was called-- and where the crowds could be seen and heard from sun up until sun down. There were the people that had business to attend to and moved about the place with a clear-set goal, and these people Lup did ignore. However the people that meandered about the marketplace, no objective save for gazing at the extravagant goods for offer under the carts that offered some shade-- these were the people that Lup looked out for. They held her attention, and she theirs.

She gauges the scene, having arrived earlier than she normally does. There’s something special happening today, especially for her, and though it’s bittersweet it made her wake up considerably early that morning. 

The crowds, because of the time and the sun barely being halfway in the sky, are thinner. The other Vagabonds aren’t out yet, and she doubts they will be for quite some time. They value the coin in their pockets too much to work for such a depleted wage. Normally Lup carries the same morals, but not today. Today she’s only looking for some extra pocket coins and not much else.

Lup looks over the heads of the crowd, trying to scout the stage. Lucretia had done a show later in the evening yesterday-- perhaps she can just use whatever clearing she had set up. Through the legs of the walking people she can just barely see a space where no one had set up their carts or stands. She’s not sure if it’s because of what Lucretia had set up or if it’s purely coincidentally, but either way it will work. 

Lup shoulders her russack and moves from the shadows and into the throng. Immediately the sun hits her cloak and starts to make the layers of clothing she wears uncomfortable. It’s all part of the appeal and the mystery-- that’s what she tells herself, keeping a gloved hand on her hood. Still, in her opinion, bullshit.

The empty space is about thirty feet in diameter, flanked by vendors that look at her curiously as she sets her bag down. It’s got a few boxes that block some of the space that she sets to moving aside, but besides that it’s good enough. She’s had some spaces, some even in this very marketplace, that have been absolutely perfect for performing without any effort on her part.

Though, she muses as she moves the last box out of the way, she’s definitely had worse.

When she’s done clearing her space sweat is already dripping off of her forehead. She pays it no mind. Instead, she kneels next to her bag and starts rummaging through it. 

“I hope you’re not planning on a long show today.”

Lup scoffs, her ears flicking to one of the boxes she had moved aside. “What, too hot for you?”

“ _You_  get to take your layers off.” 

Lup looks up in exasperation. Kravitz has sat himself on the box and he watches her with those ever-bright eyes, hiddened and dampened by the shadow his hood casts. She knows it doesn’t bother him, but just looking at him, shrouded in the heavy woolen cloak Julia made, makes her sweat even more. “How old are you? And you’re still complaining?”

“How old are _you?_   Twelve years and you still leave that stupid bag as messy as day one.”

“It’s a _system_. You’re just deflecting.” Lup turns back to her bag. He’s annoying about it but he’s right-- which, of course, just makes her more aggravated. She can never find what she’s looking for in this dastardly thing. Twelve years ago it was a game she’d play-- some ritual that she’d do before each show to calm her nerves. The bag used to hold her secrets, and she'd keep a smug smile as Kravitz hovered and she searched through her life, knowing he'd never see the insides.

Now she’s older. Now she’s not nervous, now there's no secrets to hide-- now she’s just annoyed. Though she had, at the time, owned very little, the bag had been messy from the day he bought it for her and would likely remain that way for the rest of time. 

A frigid hand grips her shoulder and she reflexively looks up. Dangling in front of her face is a bottle full of stark white liquid, swirling with traces of pale yellow.

Lup takes the bottle and smiles up at Kravitz. “Thanks.”

He sighs, withdrawing his hands and shoving them in his cloak’s pockets. “You need to be careful, Lup. Especially today. I don’t want you doing anything complex.”

Her smile is wiped from her face. Somewhere deep in her heart she appreciates the sentiment, she truly does. “I was hoping we could avoid this stupid speech of yours this year. _Head’s not there, thoughts off track_ \-- yeah, Krav, I get it. You said the same thing _last_  year. And every year before that.”

“That’s because I need to.” Kravitz says, his gaze unusually soft as he regards her. “And, of course, I’m always right.”

She flashes a grin at him, all teeth. “No, that’s just your stupid ego.”

Kravitz sighs again, heavily, but before he turns and heads back to the box she can see the smile he’s trying to hide. “I don’t know why I try.”

“It’s because you’re a big ol’ sap who cares about me!” She calls after him, laughing when he sits on the box and gives her a stoic, cold glare. 

“Whatever. Go hurt yourself in front of all these people. See if I move to help you.”

Lup sticks his tongue out at him. He offers her nothing more.

She’s sure she’ll get Kravitz’s annual speech later (she always does). But for that moment she’s going to ignore everything he’s just said-- specifically the part about not doing “anything complex”. In a way, it’s a signature part of the day’s routine.

The liquid in the bottle shimmers as she lifts it to her lips and takes a sip. Despite the horribly warm conditions it slides down her throat with a cold sting. She only needs just that much to coat her mouth and throat completely, and when she feels it sit in the bottom of her stomach she screws the lid back on the bottle and places it in her bag.

The crowd doesn't pay her or Kravitz any mind as they mill around. She watches them, a mounting excitement in her heart. It's been so long since she started doing these shows yet the wonder and rush has never died. 

For the next few minutes Lup sets up a few last-second things. She makes sure her bag is open, ready for her easy access. She takes a wooden bowl from inside of it and sets it on the floor a few feet in front of her. She finishes clearing the area as best she can.

It's time for the show.

Reaching up she takes off her cloak, then the tunic underneath it. A few people passing by stare at her, their steps faltering. It's either because she's stripping to something far more inappropriate than they are used to seeing or because they know what's to come, and both of these reasons are fine by her.

Lup adjusts the convoluted straps on her bra and winks at them.  

She doesn't bother taking off her pants, even though they're baggy and will most likely get in her way. Though she is planning a spectacular show, Kravitz is right-- it's far too hot out to stay in the sun for so long, so she'll make things quick.

Lup stretches, maybe making things a bit more _sensual_  than necessary in how she looks at the people watching. She keeps a smile on her lips that invites them closer.

Kravitz’s hawk-like watch on the crowd provides her safety. She could do _anything_  on her stage and she'd be invincible. It’s risky but it’s fun.

After putting on something of a show, she stands in the middle of the clearing, excitement burning her blood.

A few people have stopped before her, providing her a boundary. Two or three of them look at her with excitement-- they know what she's going to do, or maybe they've seen her before. The others are just followers, leaning into the excitement others generate.

It's always fun for her to show off to new people.

Cupping her fingers to her mouth, Lup whispers in the language taught to her years ago-- something like hissing and crackling, that has no words or structure. She can only entice and allure, and in turn she can only get a bite back.

The air is dry and Lup gets a response quickly.

From the corner of her vision she sees Kravitz stand, casting her one last look before disappearing to the crowd. 

It's the usual routine, then.

Lup looks at the few people before her and she looks at the crowd behind them, going about their business. None of them know exactly what she's going to do and that's thrilling to her.

She lowers her hands, feeling them buzz. She licks her lips. Swallows. Squares her feet, opens her chest, and smiles.

Lup arches back, drawing herself like a bowstring, and exhales a stream of red, resplendent fire.

It unfurls from her lungs and streams high into the dry air, reaching to just below the rooftops of the buildings. It curls wings and flies, the heat rippling reality around it. From deep within her the fire burns Lup’s bones, barely kept from eating away at her by the liquid she shallowed. It warms her and it's like being filled with sunlight. She's sure there's no better feeling.

The marketplace quiets and all eyes go to the fire, heads craning back in awe. Some stare in fear and back away, whispering of witches, of horrible displays of public indecency and threat and of the dastardly Vagabonds.

Others-- the dreamers, the wondrous-- flock.

Lup snaps her body forward, the fire following her lead and just brushing against the edge of her area. It was excited that morning-- the air and the humidity (or lack thereof)-- made the fire playful and ambitious. 

Lup can’t hear the voice in the back of her mind (that sounded suspiciously like Kravitz) telling her not to entice it.

She lets the stream from her lungs wither and the crowd applauds viciously, their faces bright with excitement. Lup bows, euphoria in her stomach. 

(There aren't too many constants in Lup’s life. Fire is one of the few.) 

She crackles and calls to it again and, now awakened, the fire responds quickly and sprouts in her upturned palms, engulfing her hands. Lup straightens and looks at the light in her palm and watches it curl around her wrists, traveling up her arms.

(Fire had been, for so long, Lup’s means of survival. It was her saving grace during cold nights, it cooked the raw food that could have killed her, it gave her hope when the stars could not.

Now, however, fire is simply her best friend.)

Lup twirls, her arms covered with flame, and though the crowd applauds she cannot hear them anymore. 

Standing still she shakes her arms out, instead leading the fire to her hands once more. She brings the small flame to her mouth and whispers to it, crackling and sharp. When Lup brings her head away the fire in her hands _blossoms_. It takes the shape of a flower, each petal unraveling one by one until a tiger lily floats before her.

When she calls the fire back it shrivels inside of itself, exploding with a force that burns no one but sends a wave of heat to the people. 

Her crowd-- because it’s _hers_  now, she’s captivated them and she won’t let go-- steps back, but their cheers are telling enough. Fear, respect, awe-- they don’t know how to feel but they are drawn in by her like moths to a flame.

She used to care about this. Their faces, so eager and afraid, motivated her. Make the flames higher, make them more _vicious_ , more impressive, all for them. She fed off of their smiles and their shouts more than she fed off their money. Now she hardly notices their expressions-- she gets lost in a world, void of anything save for her and her companion. She’s performing for their money, that is true, but the _fire_  is strictly for her.

Lup molds the fire and caresses it like a forlorn lover because _she wants to_. In these moments she is part of the fire-- it fills her soul and ignites her heart. She moves with it like a dance and watches it with fascination and love. With this fire she is young, she is brilliant, and she is whole.

Her eyes, so wide and bright, reflect it as she juggles straight fire from her hands. Her face, split into a smile, never falters. Her fingers, so slender and nimble, never burn.

It’s almost invasive to watch Lup perform. It’s a pure intimacy that exists between her and fire; she speaks to it in whispers only the two of them understand, laughs when it leaps and nibbles her hair, lets it trail and wrap around her body like a pet. 

The shows have always varied in their energy. Some days she is quiet; the performance starts when she sits herself on a crate and starts absently playing with it like a mouse in her hand, letting it slip from palm to palm. They are impromptu and quiet-- she doesn’t wear her proper clothing, she doesn’t strip, and she never bothers putting out her coin bowl. People stop, stare for a while, then go.

Other shows are fantastical and _brilliant_. This is one of them. 

Today Lup lets the fire climbs much higher than it should. She lets it wrap around her feet and pool on the floor around her, sending sparks into her vision. Lup leaps and lets it chase her--she runs and it follows-- she inhales it from her fingers and spits it out in a fireball that hangs a few feet above her head. It’s too close to be safe.

When the fireball disperses the sparks rain down on her and she bows, breathless and beaming.

The crowd _roars_.

 

“That was dangerous.” Kravitz says, much later, after the crowd had dispersed and finished throwing her their coins. He materializes in his typical fashion-- apparently out of thin air and just quiet enough to make her jump-- next to her, clawed hands hidden in his pockets.

“Made some wicked coin, though.” Lup shrugs, handing him the coin bowl and pulling her shirt down. The bowl is nearly overflowing with copper and scattered silver coins. It’s more than they need, but she’s not going to complain. 

Kravitz looks at her with that signature disappointed look. Lup thinks he should really just change his form to have that expression all the time. It might save him some time and effort. “Lup, that’s great. But the air is too hot and dry here, you--”

“Well, isn’t it a good thing that the show’s over, huh?” 

Shows typically leave her sparked and buzzing with energy, but the day’s melancholy tone had sobered her up quickly. She had almost conjured more fire to call the fleeting feeling back when the show ended.

Kravitz pockets the coins and hands her back the bowl, which she shoves back into her bag. “The baker’s cart we bought from last year is still here,” he comments, looking around the marketplace absently. “Same prices.”

“Awesome.”  She shoulders her bag and flashes him a smile that he doesn’t reciprocate. “Let’s head out, shall we?”

They buy the same thing that they did last year-- three sweet cakes for ten copper coins. It’s overpriced and the vendor greets them a little too warmly, a little too familiar with Lup’s name, but she refuses to break the tradition. For three years they’d been eating the same sweet cakes because they were the best around and she needed the best for this.

After they buy the cakes, they head to the alleyway-- the same one they’d been frequenting for four years, tucked away from the marketplace and out of sight. It’s here where they ate the first sweetcake, needing to hide from the vendor they had stole from during the first year.

It’s a little different from how it was last year-- the box Lup had sat on is gone, and in its place is a forgotten wagon, broken down and missing a wheel. There were a few crates and those are replaced, filled with empty wine bottles and garbage. Some garbage is gone and the empty space is taken up by, unsurprisingly, different garbage. 

Lup moves and perches herself on the middle of the wagon’s bed’s edge, the three cakes warm and sticky in her hand. Kravitz sits on her right, their legs and shoulders pressed together. Silently she hands him one of the cakes and sets another down on her left.

“Happy birthday, Lup.” Kravitz says, leaning into her just a bit.

“Thanks.” Lup looks at her own cake, then to the one sat next to her.

Neither of them are very hungry and Kravitz doesn’t need to eat, but they both take a bite out of their cakes and savor the taste.

After her first bite, Lup wipes her sleeve over her mouth and smiles. She takes her cake and taps it to the one beside her. “Happy birthday, Taako.”

“Happy birthday, Taako.” Kravitz parrots quietly, then takes another bite. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags added:  
> fire dancer!lup


	3. Chapter 2

The camp of the Vagabonds is awake and quiet when they return. 

The sun trails them well into the forest, ever persistent and warm, and the shadows thrown by the foliage high above their heads offers no solace. The Vagabond’s last location was slightly deeper in the forest, its main source of shade a large cave that nearly all of them could reside in. This location is on slightly less advantageous lands-- the trees are more sparse, there’s no caves, and all of their tents take up whatever space they could have used to practice their acts. There’s no river nearby and they’re easier to spot by the town’s guards.

But anywhere they lay their tents is a Vagabond’s home. Outcast by the royals, thrown away by those too haughty to enjoy their “ground-level” talents and homes by day (only to be hired by the same folk by night)-- the Vagabonds took whatever they could and did whatever work they’d be paid for.

It was a dirty, technically illegal, often less-than-monetarily rewarding life. But it was the one Lup loved more than almost anything.

With them she was one in the same-- she was not Lup, she was not in the search for her brother, and her companion was not a contracted demon. With them she was simply another peasant with a talent and a rough upbringing. 

Of course, it wasn’t as easy for the Vagabonds to forget about Kravitz and his existence as a demon. But they had learned and accepted him as well as they could. 

“Lup, _pull!_ ”

Lup had no trouble fitting in. 

Things were always buzzing with the Vagabonds. Every day there was something new, some _one_  new-- a person leaving, a person coming, a person returning. Though the Vagabonds typically had a camp of twenty people, there was no real structure. All of them were drifters; when Lup and Kravitz had joined, there had been thirty people. Now there was only seventeen.

Though, apparently, there was now nineteen.

Reflexively she quickly draws her knife, cutting through the object thrown at her. Kravitz doesn’t even flinch.

Lup looks at the object-- some sort of fruit, foreign she guesses-- and looks up.

“ _Magnus!”_

A man, rugged and haggard but with a smile of gold, grins at her from the entrance of a tent that was not there in the morning. He wears a fur cloak that’s far too hot for the forest and boots that look heavier than she’s ever weighed in her life. There are some new scars on his arms and his hair and sideburns are longer and slightly darker, but overall he looks how he did when she last saw him a year ago.

“Surprise!” He opens his arms and her face lights up as she runs forward and squeezes him as hard as she can. He envelopes her in a hug, warm and strong. 

Magnus Burnsides, her favorite Strong Man, is back. 

“Your letter said you’d be another few months!” Lup draws away, looking him up and down theatrically. “I see you've certainly kept up them proteins, huh?”

Magnus laughs and shrugs. “Gotta make money. How have things been here, by the way? We got in a few hours ago, _just_  got the kids to calm down.”

“They're still alive?” A voice asks sourly behind Lup and Magnus laughs.

“Kravitz! Didn't see you there, lurky bastard!”

Kravitz stands next to Lup, his hood drawn back once more. His eyes, pale and typically chilled, regard Magnus with something like warm contempt. “You look well.” He won't admit it, but he's always liked Magnus better than most of the Vagabonds. Magnus had a heart that was too big to treat Kravitz as the rest of them did (not that Kravitz cared).

“All the fresh air, man.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and his face brightens once more as he looks at his tent. “Oh! Speaking of, Julia made them _sweaters_ \-- it's so cute, I swear.”

“ _Sweaters?_ ” Lup asks, incredulous. “How--”

“ _First_ , though.”

Magnus pulls out of his pocket something wrapped, not all too well, in brown paper. “Happy birthday, Lup!”

“ _Magnus_.” Lup carefully unwraps the gift, customarily giving the paper back to Magnus.

It takes her a moment to identify what's inside, but after turning it over she sees the abstract design-- it's a wooden carving of a raven, staring at her with beetle wings for eyes. She's never seen the type of wood before; white and black notches, with a smooth texture.

She's gotten wooden carvings from him for the past five years. A snake, a bear, a duck, a wolf, and now a raven. They're some of the few things she's sure she'll always have with her, no matter where she goes.

“Magnus, it's beautiful.” She feels Kravitz looking at it over her shoulder and she gives it to him. “ _Look_  at this, Krav!”

There’s no surprise, but rather Kravitz looks impressed and confused. He turns it over a few times before looking up at Magnus. “This wood is from up North.”

“I’ll give you five gold if you can say exactly where.” Magnus raises, and of course Kravitz grins and those fangs flash.

“The Winsor Lands, a mile East from the city-- Magnus, you know better.” He gives the raven back to Lup and holds out his hand, which Magnus graciously drops five gold coins into. In all the years Lup has known him, he’s never lost a bet.

“Isn’t Winsor at least a month’s journey? Why _Winsor?”_ Lup asks, putting the raven into her bag. 

Magnus shrugs. “Haven’t been before. Julia wanted to see the icebergs.”

“How is Julia?” Kravitz suddenly asks, looking towards the tent. 

“She’s good! She--”

“Kravitz? Lup?”

A voice inside of the tent calls out and there’s sounds of rustling and, of course, a few thrown curse words.

“No-- no, damn, _stay-- stay_  I said, chill _out_ \-- oh, dear--”

The flap to the tent suddenly flies open and two lionesses, six hundred pounds of pure muscle and golden hair and sharp, watchful eyes, bound towards them.

Kravitz _immediately_  lets out a yelp that turns into a _caw_ as his body shifts and energy bends around him. Lup sputters as she gets a face full of feathers as Kravitz, now in the shape of raven, flutters and tries his hardest to escape into her poncho.

The lionesses crowd Lup, rubbing against her legs and nearly plowing her over. 

“Hey, girls!” She kneels to greet them and Kravitz struggles to perch on her head, trying his best to keep away from the cats. 

“The kids missed you!” Magnus smiles as one of the girls runs back to him, nudging him before going back to Lup. 

She cradles their large heads and strokes behind their ears as they lick her face and lean on her, their tails whipping her back and her arms. She's known them since Julia rescued them as cubs from a prince (from a town the Vagabonds were, coincidentally, now banned from), and she's watched Julia train them and love them as if they were dogs.

Lup loves Avril and Johanna. Kravitz does not.

“Kravitz--” Lup tries to shove him off while simultaneously trying her best not to drown under feathers. “Get-- get _off_ , come on--”

He caws, indignant and loud. Avril and Jo don't spare him a glance.

“Kravitz, where's your dignity gone?”

Lup looks up as Julia finally exists the tent. Kravitz immediately pushes off of her and flies to Julia, perching on her shoulder and pecking at her hair.

Julia was unlike anyone Lup had ever met before while travelling. She was someone Lup was told to become, back in her youth; beautiful, elegant, smart, sensible. Her long hair, a wavy dark black, was always in a bun when she wasn’t performing. Her dresses, all hand-sewn, fit her proper and well. Her shoes were never scuffed, her white shirts were never muddy, and her skirts never dragged. Julia was _well-put_  and Lup was anything but.

“Hey, Krav.” She says and softly smiles, scratching under Kravitz’s beak. Her smile was, as rumored throughout the camp, charming enough to sweeten kings. “Still a damn groveling coward, huh?”

Her tongue, however, was sharp enough to cut down any man.

Kravitz ruffles his feathers but she smoothes them down, patting his head. “I’m sorry,” She says, watching Lup struggle under the intense love of two lions. “They’re excited to see their favorite aunt. _Girls, come_.”

As quickly as they had come, Johanna and Avril turn and stalk back to their mother, finally noticing the raven that stares at them in thinly-veiled fear. Julia leans down and kisses the tops of both of their heads before pointing back to her tent.

Watching them go, Lup wonders, not for the first time, who trained Julia to become the brilliant lion tamer she is.

“You’re safe, Kravitz. Stop being such a baby.” Julia chides, and the bird sitting on her shoulder glares at her before taking flight, landing and transforming once back at Lup’s side.

“Really, you’re embarrassing. It’s been _years_.” Lup glares at Kravitz as he brushes off the last traces of dark magic billowing from his cloak. 

“Cat don’t like birds.” He huffs.

“You’re not a bird.”

“I _can_  be.”

“But you weren’t one…?” Magnus chimes in, and Julia chuckles.

“Listen, I-- okay, that’s-- _that’s besides the point_.” Kravitz snaps, crossing his arms angrily. “Cats don’t like demons. There. Are we good? Fine?”

“No. You’re immortal, Kravitz.” Julia smirks, also folding her arms. Lup watches the two of them and it’s almost like watching a jousting match. 

Truthfully, she’s on Kravitz’s side. Bird or not, she doesn’t want him hurt. But that’s not a good thing to let other people know, no matter how much she trusts them.

Accidents happen. Kravitz is immortal. Lup _isn’t_.

" _Wow_ , what a shame you had to come back.” Kravitz says loudly, his fangs pointing through a smile, and Julia laughs.

“Missed you too, bird boy.”

 

Lup spends the rest of the day with Magnus and Julia, simply sitting around in their tent and listening to their stories. Kravitz pointedly does not enter their tent and does not go within a few feet of the lions, though Lup is certain he can hear the stories through her, wherever he is.

Magnus tells about the dog sled he got to man, and the food he got to hunt and eat for himself, and how the girls got to perform with their mother and the townspeople were so astonished. He talks about the people they met, the trouble the girls got themselves into. Julia mostly sits back and listens to him, occasionally pointing out that no, this extravagant thing did not happen-- _no_  she did not kill a whale with her bare hands, _no_  Magnus didn’t either, _no_  she did not become Queen of the town.

However, there’s particular a story that she _doesn’t_  disprove.

“Avril was so sure of herself,” Julia says proudly, rubbing at Avril’s head on her lap. “I thought we wouldn’t get the trick down for a few more months, but she’s been able to do it perfectly. Isn’t that right, lovely?”

The lion, though oblivious to any English, harrumphs and nuzzles her head closer to Julia.

“I was actually, um,” Julia looks to Johanna, dozing on her and Magnus’s cot. “Going to give a show. Tonight. I saw you were out this morning-- how was the crowd?”

Lup shrugs, accepting another chunk of bread Magnus hands to her. “Typical. The prince’s birthday was a few days ago, so there’s some leftover tourists. Maybe you can get something out of them.”

“Probably. You’ll watch?”

“Of course.”

Julia absently sticks her hand in Avril’s mouth, toying with her fangs. “Excellent.”

 

The show that night is, all things considered, fantastic.

Kravitz stayed back at the camp, ever so wary of Avril and Johanna. He wished Julia luck, told Lup to let him know if she needed his help with _anything_ \-- and he means _anything_ , Lup-- and retired to his and Lup’s tent.

Lup didn’t mind. Pushing aside the dangers of the night, she knew she wouldn’t miss Julia’s show for anything.

And it was a nice distraction from thinking about her birthday.

So she lit the torches for Julia and helped to set the stage (which was, of course, the clearing Lup had used earlier that morning). She helped to move in the boxes and stands for the girls and, when all was said and done, she whistled a stream of fire into the air, alerting the crowd as to something happening.

The night was normally either dense or thin with crowds and there seemed to be no inbetween. This close to a festival, there were still people milling around, even after dark. Vendors would set up small lights on their cart or they would light a fire, hoping to draw some folk in by the warmth.

But the attention, that night, was turned off of the sellers by the first lion’s roar.

Julia’s acts were always bordering on dangerous, even for a lion tamer, but the secret was the trust she held with her lions. Lup had seen so many lion tamers in the past that whipped their lions, or forced them into fanciful positions with barbed collars. Julia had no such tools-- Avril and Johanna wore leather collars, studded with stolen jewels and threads of gold, that were completely for show and not harmful at all.

For Julia there was nothing dangerous about her or her lions. She trusted them as Lup trusted the fire-- she asked them to sit and they sat, she asked them to dance and they did. When Avril harrumphed in frustration Julia backed off with a laugh, allowing her space. When Johanna decided to playfully grab at Julia’s skirt, she didn’t yell-- she smiled and played along, grabbing at her paws and growling back. 

Her attraction wasn’t really about what her lions could do. It was the act of having such a _beast_ \-- ruthless and exotic and _fierce_ \-- trust her so completely. It was the act of a woman who feared nothing.

Julia the Lion Tamer.

Julia the Beautiful.

Julia the Fearless.

A woman who did not fear having a lion rest on her back, who did not fear for her head on a lion's jaw; a woman who danced and twirled with lions like some sort of play.

Lup watched from her special spot “backstage” (on the floor, hidden in the shadows of the stands). She always found Julia’s shows to be fun to sit in on. Watching the chemistry between Julia and her lions-- the way that she dominated them (which, Lup knew, was all for the show and not a cent true) and commanded them (which was also not true. She asked, they complied because they wanted to). 

Julia’s crowds were always interesting to note, too. 

Lup spent a lot of time people-watching, a habit from her younger days when she was on the run. Who was most likely to rob her? Who would trick her into smiling? Who would take her hand and try to run?-- she never knew, and so it was always her job to figure out.

Though she eventually had Kravitz at her side, it had taken a while to learn that she no longer needed to. Eventually it sank in-- somewhere between self-confidence and cockiness from Kravitz’s protection-- but she still indulged in her absent-minded hobby.

That night she saw a few interesting faces.

A human man, wearing ragged and torn clothes, whose unruly beard covered nearly all of his face. He didn’t throw many coins, but he smiled a toothless grin at Julia and clapped the loudest.

A mother, tired and holding a newborn but intrigued, watching the lionesses road and spin. Every so often she’d look at her baby and whisper and point quietly, as if the child could understand the wonders of it all.

A drow, genderless in appearance, foreign in clothing, who would turn to strangers next to them and whisper things with a confused, but not unhappy, tone.

A dwarf, short and stout, with a clean shaven face and a completely bald head that reflected the fire. He seemed to appreciate the lions more than anything, despite the dozens of eyes trained on the beauty that was Julia.

But the most _interesting_  person Lup saw that night was a tiefling man with red skin and dark, slicked hair. His clothing, while plain, was expensive-- silver accents shone in the firelight, and a dagger, polished and seemingly new, glinted unsheathed at his belt. 

This tiefling occasionally clapped and, as the show went on, grew more and more interested and fascinated. He was odd in that he seemed to not have ever _known_  about Vagabonds, as he kept turning to strangers and asking questions. He looked at Julia in hunger, but not for her stature-- he wanted her _position_ , it seemed. He looked envious of the eyes around him staring up at her.  He carried a certain ambition in his stare that Lup had never seen before.

But, above all else, the most interesting part about this man was the elf, wearing rugged clothing and a bored stare upon his face, that stood next to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags added:  
> lion tamer!Julia
> 
> Sazed
> 
> Taako


	4. Prologue part 2

“Are you lost, Little Master?”

“ _No_. I'm not lost.”

“You look lost.”

Lup turns and glares at Kravitz, who grins back at her with that devilish set of fangs. She's still just a little too impressed and scared of him to tell him off, so she tries to give him her best stare. His eyes regard her with his typical icy amusement.

“Still afraid, I see.” He comments, moving forward and holding apart branches in the brush so she can follow.

She's already looked in her book-- again and again she's scanned it in the dark (pretending that Kravitz wasn’t reading over her shoulder)-- but it seems as though they're stuck together. She can't summon a different demon or trade the current one in, to her dismay.

She could, of course, dismiss him and do the spell again. But the book had warned her that once a demon was set free, they would be able to do whatever they wished to their previous master. It was one of the (many) drawbacks to summoning and commanding a demon, the book said, and oftentimes the summoner would spend their whole life, from then on, trying to outrun or outsmart it.

Lup figured she'd deal with that drawback when she found her brother. He'd think of some protection for her, or he'd help her kill him, or… or something. Another fruitless hope that she kept was that she’d find her brother quickly, and Kravitz wouldn’t have had enough time to truly develop a sense of hatred towards her. It’s a long shot.

“You're a demon.” She snaps (as if that explain everything), rushing past him and turning immediately, sure to keep her eyes on him at all times. He hadn't done anything, not yet, but it was in the demon's nature to find loopholes.

“That hurts.” He replies with a smile. His fangs gleam in the moonlight and she’s not unconvinced that he purposely showed them.

“ _Anyway_ , I'm not lost.” They set off again, Kravitz a few steps ahead of her. The darkness of the night, while frightening to her, did not seem to bother him one bit. He strolled as carelessly as if the sun was awake and their path was clearly mapped. It was grating to watch. “If we keep going south we'll reach the town. Or that's what _you_  said he said, anyway.”

She wasn't above staying in the jungle, to be fair. But she couldn't shake her distrust of him, and if he _had_  lied, she would be beyond annoyed. 

Lup was only ten and she had yet to cast an offensive spell on anything yet. But she wasn't above it.

“Why would I lie to you?” Kravitz sighs, stepping over a fallen log. He holds his hand out to assist her, but (though she was hardly graceful) Lup pushes it aside, climbing over the log herself. He rolls his eyes, exasperated. “I'm literally _under contract_. Do you think I want to stay in this damn jungle any longer?”

“Shut up, demon. Why do you care? You don't have feelings.”

Kravitz glares at her again, but he says nothing further.

She grins at him impishly.

That's something she's found interesting and beneficial-- certain phrases she says he _has_  to obey, granted she says them correctly. He doesn't even try to struggle-- he just _stops_. It’s almost fun to do, in a weird way.

_ Shut up, stay there, wait for me, go ahead. _

They continue into the forest, the usual uncomfortable silence stretching between them. If Kravitz didn't lie to her, the town was another few hours’ journey. It was one that she didn’t want to make, truthfully-- the cave she had stayed in was perfect enough for shelter and a fire. She'd stayed in there for a few weeks and honestly gotten attached to it. 

But there had been rumors that she had overheard from travellers that an auction was happening in the next town over for a few days. It was a long shot, definitely, and she was positive her brother wouldn't be there. 

But she had to check.

Kravitz doesn't know why they left-- she's still been so sure to not clue him in on anything. For all he knows, she just wanted a change of scenery.

He had looked at her quizzically when she said they were leaving that night, no questions asked. He asked if she was afraid of the dark and laughed when she didn't respond. 

She was afraid of the dark, but now she had a bodyguard. Her fear was illogical because of him.

“Can't you make yourself useful and teleport us there?” Lup asks, because even though she knows the answer and doesn't mind the way, the silence was growing on her and that's another thing she can't stand. Plus-- and there’s not much she could do about this-- she was starting to feel tired. They had been walking for _hours_.

“Why would I ever need to teleport two bodies?” He responds, holding up another branch for her. “And who says I _want_  to?”

“Me. I'm your master.”

“You're a ten year old with a god complex. Don't flatter yourself.” 

Unsurprisingly, every single time she starts a conversation with him she regrets it.

“Well then what--” 

Her words cut off as her foot catches on a root and she falls just as Kravitz stops walking.

Her bag presses uncomfortably in her back as she lays on the ground, her left ankle throbbing and the breath from her lungs gone. Shock makes her eyes tear up and quickly she wipes at them, many things running through her head (but, at the forefront, there's no _way_  Kravitz is seeing her cry).

“ _Damnit_ , children are fragile.” She hears Kravitz growl irritably.

She doesn't want to hear him complain and she looks up to tell him so. But Kravitz is leaning against a tree, balanced on one foot as he rubs his left ankle.

“Watch where you're going. Do I need to be your damn walking stick?” He pushes off from the tree and Lup sits up, watching him in dawning amazement. Kravitz takes a few steps and he's _limping_ , glaring at her.

She touches her ankle, watching Kravitz, and he winces in pain just as she does.

“Well stop _touching_  it!” Kravitz snaps, trying to settle weight on his foot.

“You...” She whispers, looking at her ankle. It's already red and swelling. “You can feel this?”

“Of course I can.” He paces a few more times, eventually getting to a cadence that doesn't limp. “Did you not read that in your damn book?”

“Uh…”

“You summoned a demon without _reading the whole description!?_ ” 

“I _read it!_ ” She did-- or, at least, she read the parts that she felt applied to her. Those parts she knew exceptionally well.

Kravitz moans in frustration and Lup actually feels a _shift_  in the air, rippling into her and shaking something inside her. She doesn’t know exactly what it is, but it’s coming from a demon and that’s not good. “You're gonna kill me,” he mumbles, running a clawed hand through his hair. “I'm going to die by a _child_.”

“You can die if I die?” 

“Gods, this is the worst.” Kravitz turns, sharply, and starts stalking back towards their path. _Leaving_  her. “I'll explain along the way. You probably need a healer. Hurry up.”

“Hey!” Lup tries to straighten the best she can but when she tries to move her ankle pain shoots up, hot and quick, and Kravitz stumbles.

She'd never seen him so annoyed.

“Let me guess, you can't walk?” Kravitz turns and time seems to warp as Lup looks up at him and then, in the next moment, is levitating through the forest. 

Lup blinks rapidly a few times. Looks down-- there's the floor?-- and looks up--there's the trees.

In front of her is the forest.

Behind her--

_ “Put me down!” _

“What, are you going to walk? Because if you can, by all means.” Kravitz stares straight again, his jaw rigid, and adjusts his grip on her slightly. 

He's right. But by no means does she like or enjoy this at all. 

“Shouldn't you _ask_  me before picking me up, _demon?_ ” 

His glare, momentarily, shifts to her. His pale eyes regard her blankly. “I will drop you.”

Lup huffs and folds her arms. She tries to get as comfortable as she can in the arms of a demon she doesn't trust.

He can't hurt her. And in some weird way he’s actually doing his job, for the first time. But that doesn't ease her at all. 

“So what's the deal about this…” She learns that it's pretty hard to sound snappish or commanding while being in someone's arms. “... The whole pain thing.”

“Seriously?”

“Well what _else_  should I call it?”

“A bond.”

Lup closes her eyes and wills herself to relax, just a little, as Kravitz starts to explain. Trying to focus on him with her twisted ankle isn't easy, but sheer determination has her stay awake. She's _not_  falling asleep while being carried by _Kravitz_. 

But the pain is making her drowsy.

“Summoning a demon-- are you listening?”

“I'm resting my eyes. Get on with it.”

“You are ridiculous. 

Bonds are formed by-- well, you wouldn't understand, likely, you're too young. Bonds--”

“I'm smart enough to summon _you_. Don't degrade me.”

“Don't interrupt. It's rude.

Bonds are, simply put, formed between two people that are completely connected spiritually. There are weak bonds and  fresh bonds and strong bonds-- you get it.

You and I-- _unfortunately_ \-- have a fabricated, yet extremely strong, bond. But the bond is particularly one-sided in your favor. 

If you call I must come. I must serve you and all of your desires-- the usual garbage. But because we are strongly bonded to your side, if you are hurt I will feel the pain as well, though if I am hurt you… likely won't feel it. We would need a stronger emotional bond on my end, which the summoning spell doesn't conjure.

The sorcerer or wizard or _whoever_  made that spell put this into play as a punishment to the demon-- how nice of him, right? The basic philosophy of it is that if the caster is harmed in any way, then the demon will have failed at protecting them and should be punished.

That's the simple explanation to it, anyway. Get it?

… Little Master?”

Kravitz slows to a stop, looking at the body in his arms. 

Her eyes are closed and she breathes slowly, wisps of her tattered hair curling gently around her face.

He's had two or three masters before this one, and he's been given the job to keep guard over bedrooms or houses before. 

He's also done some particularly questionable things that have landed him in bed next to a master.

_This_  has never happened.

He stares wide-eyed at his Little Master, asleep in his arms, and he can't bring himself to wake her. There's something soft and quiet about her face, free from the anger and the bite and the fear. He hasn't ever been this close to a child before, nonetheless a _live_  sleeping child.

For the first time he finds himself caring-- or at least curious-- as to why such a young mortal could need a demon.

It's… it's almost sad to think about.

Kravitz looks up, blinking rapidly and looking at the forest around him. A thought, painfully mortal in content, crosses his mind--

_ What the hell am I doing? _

\-- before he shakes his head and continues walking. That was an incredibly odd and not relevant at all thought to have. 

“Don't ask me to explain this again in the morning.” He grumbles aloud to no one, but it's not as acidic as he wants.


	5. Chapter 3

It's hard for Lup not to panic when the show ends and Julia takes her final bow.

The crowd disperses mostly-- a few people stay behind to talk to Julia and pet the lions. Julia smiles at them and is always happy to talk about her girls and the show-- it’s generally custom for Vagabonds to hang around after shows to talk to the crowd. She doesn't pay much mind to Lup. Nobody does.

The tiefling and the elf don't stick around. 

They turn and push past the dispersing crowd and by the time Lup stands she can no longer see them.

She feels her heart racing and she tries to dampen it. She's seen so many elves that look like her before-- thin, tan body, freckles, beautiful hair-- and she's had far too many false alarms to get excited _every time_. Every time it's been a false alarm, every time it's been a disappointment, every time she feels heartbroken.

Call it twin’s intuition but something feels off this time.

“ _Kravitz_.” Lup whispers, then runs into the crowd.

With mounting anxiety she pushes through the people, trying to shove around the spectators and the shoppers. Lup looks around fervently and tries to get any look at them again-- she looks for red skin, for long ears, for blonde hair, for _anything_. It’s dark and she can’t see the people’s faces and she never got to really listen to either of their voices-- and she asks a few people, quickly, if they’ve seen an elf, or a tiefling-- no, she didn’t-- she doesn’t know their names, please--

“Lup, what are you doing?”

She runs into someone who grabs hold of her arms, steadying her. Her whole body is _buzzing_  and it takes a moment to even register that she’s stationary. Kravitz has his hood up but she can still see the concern on her face-- shakily she reaches up and tries to smooth down her hair.

“I-- there's-- _someone_ \--” When did she start hyperventilating? 

After so long with her, Kravitz knows immediately what she's trying to say. He looks around, peering over heads. He knows what to search for and he’s taller than her-- perhaps he can see more, perhaps he can see _them_ \-- “Here? When?”

“I-- they were watching Julia and--” As Lup looks around something _red_ catches her eye.

Lup twists in Kravitz’s grip and is tearing off before he can call her name. The energy in her heart makes her sprint, pushing into people and stumbling over herself. A few people curse at her and shout but she keeps running, deaf to them. The patch of red keeps moving and she thinks she can see eyes-- a glimpse of black--

“What the hell are ya’ doin?”

She slows to a stop at the edge of the marketplace, her stomach dropping. A human guard, dressed all in red and armed with a black spear, glares at her. The crimson in his armour gleams with the firelight.

“I-- I'm sorry--” 

“You should be.” The man crosses his arms and regards her sourly. The look he gives her means that she’s in trouble but she can’t think of his threat, not at that moment. “You look awful suspicious, running around like that.” 

“I'm sorry, I thought I--”

“ _Lup_.”

Sharp nails gingerly grab her arm, pulling her away. She lets herself be tugged, listening with dull ears to Kravitz apologize for his little niece, always getting herself into trouble, she doesn't understand, forgive her. Lup’s heart beats fast.

Kravitz pulls her into an alley and by the look on his face she knows he hasn’t seen them.

“They're probably still in the city. Okay?” He tries to catch her eyes again but she keeps twisting, keeping her gaze on the market and the meandering crowd. “How-- did you get a good look at him?”

“ _Yes_ \-- Kravitz, we have to--”

“Lup, please think about this.”

The face was nearly unrecognizable. Smooth, clean, bright. Sharp and almost long-- bright eyes, slightly big nose, long ears-- freckles-- the hair--

“Kravitz, I'm almost _sure_.”

It was beyond chance that Taako could be here, Lup knows, but she can't explain herself to Kravitz. The chance was so slim that this could all happen but she _knew_  something was different, she just knew. 

“Was he with anyone?” Kravitz asks, but he’s quiet now. She finally looks back at him, her ears flat.

When he brings this up and asks this terrible question, a thought trickles through her excitement and panic. A horrible thought that breaks her heart and confirms a dreaded possibility she’s thought about for so long.

“Yes.”

That brings about a solemn silence. There's no way to dispel the possibility, not if that’s Taako. Lup has learned to stop trying to reason anything in this world-- she’s stopped trying to live in her childish world full of hopes and _maybe_ s.

The tiefling standing next to the elf was not his sibling. He was not a friend and not a lover and likely not an escort or a guard. He was not someone who happened to turn at the same time as the elf.

If that elf is Lup’s brother, it means Taako was never freed. He never made it out.

“Lup, we've known-- this has always been a chance.” Kravitz whispers and Lup feels something build up in the back of her throat. “We've known this.”

“B-but…”

“There's still a chance it's not him.”

Lup nods.

But she _knows_.

“Hey, hey.” A hand, light and frigid to the touch, hovers above her upper arm for a moment before holding onto her. It’s not warm. It’s never _been_  warm. But it’s comforting all the same. Lup looks up and Kravitz’s face is soft and _sympathetic_. “They haven’t left the city and they likely won’t tonight, right? The roads are too dangerous. Go back to the camp and I’ll keep looking, okay?”

She wonders how he could think that she could simply _go back_  and not _do_  something-- but she wonders only briefly. He’s right, though her heart screams at her to defy him. He can shift his form and go to places she couldn’t and she can’t see in the dark as well as him. 

“If they’re here, I’ll find them.” Kravitz says and she truly believes him.

Lup trusts Kravitz. She trusts him completely.

“Thank you for this, Kravitz.” Lup whispers, looking into those striking eyes, and she truly wants him to know she’s so incredibly grateful for him. She’s told him before, only a few times, but he never seems to understand. 

“Be safe.” Is the only reply he gives before he’s gone, the sounds of wings fluttering overhead already so far away.

And somehow she _is_  safe.

She bypasses Julia in the market, still talking to a few leftover people, and no one stops her. She departs from the town’s safety into the darkness and fear of the night and no one goes to hurt her-- no wolves come prowling to her, no robbers jump out at her. It’s as if they can sense her beating heart-- deep and loud as a marching drum, red and hot like the fire she plays with.

Or perhaps fate itself had plans for her that night that included monsters far, far worse. Perhaps something was supposed to fall into line that night, guided by time and desperation.

For whatever reason, she makes it back to the Vagabonds safely.

“Where’s Julia?” Magnus asks her when she enters the campgrounds. The fire that he sits before calls to her, smiling and grinning like a fox. It knows something she doesn’t.

“Still… uh. Still in town.” Lup sits beside Magnus, feeling something like a weight fall upon her shoulders as she does. There are no real thoughts in her head-- nothing that makes her overthink, nothing that makes her worry for Kravitz, nothing that makes her wonder what he’s found.

Just one thing, one word, floats in her head. _Taako_.

“Are you okay?”

Lup stares into the fire and leans on Magnus because _bless_  him, he always knows, doesn’t he? “I thought I saw someone today.” She used to be more secretive about her brother-- and she still is, to an extent. But she’s learned that a handful of watchful eyes are better than two.

“That guy you’re always looking for?” Magnus wraps a heavy arm around her. It’s warm and comforting but… but somehow she’s stopped associating comfort with temperature. 

“Yeah.” 

Magnus gently rubs her arm with his hand and looks at her with a smile that she can’t decipher. “Well, maybe the new guy knows something about him, yeah?”

Lup closes her eyes. _Steady, steady, steady_. Coincidences, right? With a voice as steady as she can muster, she asks, “New people in the camp?”

Magnus nods. “Yeah. Some tiefling dude and an elf. They seem to-- Lup?”

She’s already running.

There’s a maze of tents in the Vagabond’s camp and she darts between them all, shoving past the people that stare at her in confusion. She runs past men attempting to juggle, she runs past mimes, she runs past a few people she knows-- for the camp of the Vagabonds doesn’t sleep, not really. There’s always _something_  happening.

The _something happening_  that night seems to be for her.

Lup turns the corner and hears laughter and stops in her tracks.

Lucretia, dressed in her typical robes, has a smile on her face as she talks to these two strangers. Her flute is tucked into her belt and she looks as if she was getting ready to leave for town-- her snakes lay lazily on her shoulders, coiled and tired.

The two strangers beside Lucretia pay the snakes no mind.

The tiefling man has a dazzling smile, full of white and cleaned teeth and crinkles around his eyes and on his forehead. His eyes regard Lucretia with a wonder and curiosity Lup’s seen so often in viewers. One of his hands is in his pocket. The other is linked with the elf’s hand.

“And if you-- oh! Lup!” Lucretia turns her head and absently strokes the head of one of her snakes with her thumb. The two strangers falter and look at Lup as well-- Lup, heaving breaths and sporting wild hair and a heart that’s stopped beating. “We’ve picked up two new wanderers, it seems.”

Lup’s throat is dry and there’s some pressure on her heart that she wonders, vaguely, if Kravitz can feel. “O-oh.”

“My name is Sazed,” The tiefling says and he turns that dazzling smile to her, sticking out a gloved hand. 

Lup can’t look at him as she walks forward on weak knees and shakes his hand. 

“I saw your performance earlier today! It was absolutely beautiful-- I’ve been looking for a fresh start for things, y’know? And I’d never even _heard_  about the Vagabonds before--”

The man keeps talking as if Lup is listening at all.

“-- and so I asked around earlier and… and…”

Sazed looks at his companion and looks back to Lup-- quickly, quietly, deftly-- and he says, “I, um-- it seems to be customary here, my apologies-- this is m-- this is Taako.”

_ She knows. _

She knows it’s Taako.

Knows it in his freckles, in his height, in his eyes-- he’s grown _so much_ , he looks _so different_. She doesn’t look like him anymore, she’s got shorter hair, he’s got long hair and it’s braided and his clothing is dull in color and-- and he doesn’t have that light in his eyes, that fire, that hopeful wish and ambition. His smile isn’t the same. 

Lup can’t move. Her heart has stopped and so have her thoughts. Twelve years of searching-- twelve years _alone_ , twelve years of eating raw because she can’t cook alone, twelve years of listening to the wind, hoping to catch a hint of a name, twelve years of watching _auctions_  and prowling streets because _no one_  talked of servants’ names, twelve years of constantly moving, of never being _home_ , of having her heart _incomplete_ \--

Twelve years and Taako looks at her and says, “Who are you?”

After twelve years her heart finally breaks.

“I-I’m… I’m Lup.” She whispers and she looks at her brother’s face, looks at the face she _loves_  and calls home and _knows_ \--

“Nice to meet you.”

Taako sticks his hand out and Sazed starts talking again. Maybe to her, maybe to Lucretia. Lup doesn’t pay attention.

Lup holds the hand she’s been yearning for. Her heart _hurts_  and she knows Kravitz can feel it.

Taako’s hand is warm. Lup’s soul _begs_  her to touch him-- hug Taako, _her_  Taako, hug him and never let him go ever again.

But she doesn’t. She lets Taako’s hand fall.

She watches it fall. She sees it land by his side.

And Lup sees Taako, just barely moving, trace the word _no_  into the fabric of his pants with his ring finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags added:
> 
> snake charmer! lucretia
> 
> slavery in here sorry boys
> 
> fuck sazed even though yall dont know yet


	6. Prologue p. 3

The dress that Lup wears is tight against her arms and made for someone about two years younger than her. Her dirtied socks peek from under the hem and the waist pinches her stomach. The gloves, pure white, press against and accentuate her overgrown and jagged nails. The bow in her hair is tight against her scalp and starts to hurt within an hour.

Yet despite it all, the dress doesn’t look _entirely_  bad. She stole it off of some foreign vendor and the price tag was fairly impressive. It’s white with some accents of baby blue and there are decorations of butterflies on the bottom. They seem to be crafted with care and Lup does spend a few moments admiring them in earnest.

The dress is honestly beautiful, even if it isn’t her style in the slightest and she hates wearing it.

The hatred, of course, being doubled the moment Kravitz sees her. He doesn’t stop laughing for the entire walk to the arena.

“It’s not _that_  funny, demon,” she bites at him.

“Sure, _Princess_.” And he grins at her mockingly with those menacing fangs of his.

“I could make you hurt.”

The threat is taken as he takes every threat by her-- with no seriousness and a sarcastic scoff. “You are already making me hurt. Have you _seen_  yourself in that dress?”

“Is this all you can to do? Mock a kid in a dress?” Lup lifts up her skirt unnecessarily, jumping over a puddle with a puffed breath. The dress is horrendous, but still one of the nicest things she’s ever worn. 

“I was under the impression you wished to be treated much older.”

“You’re _insufferable_.” She glares up at Kravitz--  him in his _already_  fancy and suitable attire, constructed out of his own dark magic. Kravitz grins down at her. “Can you just shut up for two seconds?”

“Incapable.” And he laughs again.

The truth is that she’s nervous, and being angry at Kravitz is easier than focusing on the anxiety and the task at hand. She’s never had an accomplice to these particular trips and she’s never simply _walked_  in like this. For years Lup has slipped around back doors and hid in the throng of strangers, trying her best to be unremarkable while still _watching_. She’s stammered excuses of relations and foreign uncles and being a representative of some lord or owner. 

Now she doesn’t have to do that. 

For the first time, she’s got _an actual foreign uncle_. Albeit a fabricated one.

When they walk up to the ticket booth, finally the first in the queue, Kravitz introduces himself as such-- 

“This is my niece, who will be spectating.”

\-- And they _almost_  get by.

“... Are you sure?”

The man at the ticket booth, who had previously looked at Kravitz with indifference and boredom, sits up in his seat and turns hungry eyes on Lup. The glint in his eyes makes her uneasy and she forces herself to look at him with bile and a bite instead of fear. His expression doesn’t change with her narrowed eyes. 

“She’d get a bit of coin,” the man says, finally looking back to Kravitz with an earnest grin. “Y’know, what with the rarity of elves these days. _And_  she’s still got long hair.”

Lup continues to glare at the man and waits, almost with detached interest, for Kravitz to move them along. This isn’t the first time she’s been told she’s valuable-- these greedy men just need to be told _no_  by another man and they’ll cease their pining.

Except a few moments go by. And Kravitz says nothing. 

Lup realizes, in a very cold moment, that Kravitz probably _would_  sell her for a few good coins. He would sell her for _less_. She looks up at him, panic blossoming in her heart, but somehow she doesn’t see the same greed.

Kravitz is looking at the man in confusion-- pure, unfiltered confusion. 

“Excuse me?” Even with his hood drawn Lup can see his pale eyes narrow and his lip twitch, fangs barely visible. 

The man looks at him, only some of his excitement gone. “I mean, you look awful well put together. Surely you could always buy another--”

“This is my _niece_ ,” Kravitz snarls, and in the next moment there is a gentle clawed hand on the back of Lup’s head, tangled in her curls, cold and firm. Lup can’t stop staring at him, her mouth slightly agape. He doesn’t look at her at all-- just keeps a menacing glare on the man. “If you _dare suggest_  that I should even _consider_  something so vile as selling my own _kin_ \--”

“Sir--” The man holds up his hands defensively, eyes growing wide. “My apologies, I--”

And then things _change_.

Lup can’t pinpoint _exactly_  when it happens, or even precisely _how_ , but in one moment Kravitz has a hand on the back of her head and he’s glaring at the ticket man and in the next moment his hand is curled in the man’s shirt, ripping the seams with his nails. There’s a staleness in the air that smells like sulfur and there’s no sounds aside from a deep low _pulse_.

Kravitz’s face is that of a _skeleton_ , empty and dark and sporting a grin with fanged, abstract teeth. His eye sockets are void of anything save for some sort of _mist_.

A mist that, if Lup looks at it too long, reflects herself.

Reflects a scream on her face. Reflects old and tattered clothes and bare, bleeding feet. Trying to run and being restrained, fingernails cutting into her upper arms. The sounds of a carriage rumbling away, something _else_ , some other shout, a name being called--

And then the mist clears and time resumes and all that is left is Kravitz, grinning once more.

“Thank you.” He removes his hand-- it’s been resting in Lup’s hair all this time, somehow-- and leans forward, reaching into the booth and grabbing two tickets. The man is staring at him with an empty expression, dull and void. “Let’s go, darling.”

He rests his hand on Lup’s shoulder and steers her from the booth and she very suddenly remembers to breathe. With a still, icy heart, she turns her head and watches the patrons next in the queue shuffle up to the booth as if nothing had occurred. The ticket seller turns to them with the same indifference and boredom.

“Wh--What…” She lets her body be steered by Kravitz, pushing through the crowd at the doors to the theater. She barely notices the patrons around them stare at Kravitz. She only recognizes when he slips the unused money into her pocket and gives her one of the tickets to hold. “What the…”

“Stop gawking.” Lup looks at him and he’s trying to look passive but there’s some sort of smile on his face, amused and proud. His eyes sweep around the room with moderate interest, and when they reach an empty table near the edge of the theater he lets go of her and sits. He picks up a name card on the placemat in front of him and shoves it in his pocket. “I’ll admit it was a bit _rash_ , but the most you’ve had me do is steal an _apple_. I’ve been bored.”

“That…” She shakes her head, trying to clear her stunned fog, and sits in a chair next to him. “That explains _nothing_.”

“You have your secrets.” He watches two patrons, both women in flashy black dresses, sit across from them. Kravitz smiles at them sweetly when they regard him with interest. “I’ll keep mine.”

“Is this seat reserved?” one of the women asks, a charming smile curving on her lips. She gestures to the seat that Lup is in but her eyes stay on Kravitz’s face. “We’ve got a third party coming soon.”

“This is my niece,” Kravitz explains. It’s a lot more gentle and calm than… than what he did before. He smiles at the patrons again when they glance questioningly at each other.

“My apologies,” the other woman responds, now looking at Lup with a expression much different than that of one saved for servants. “The resemblance-- it’s hard to see, I’m sure you’re aware.” 

“I was not aware,” he replies sweetly. The patrons cough and sputter some apologies before turning back to the stage, their cheeks red. Kravitz bares his fangs and sticks his tongue out the moment they turn.

“Do you want to tell me why we’re here before I have to choke myself to death?” he leans over and whispers to Lup.

“Shut up,” Lup whispers back, her eyes trained on the curtain. Not for the first time, she’s thankful she cannot be hurt by Kravitz.

He _does_  shut up. But he bares his fangs at her instead.

She swallows and tries to pay him no heed.

The auction goes as the previous one did. And the one before that, and the one before _that_ , and Lup feels her heart grow heavier as the evening goes on.

There’s only _one_  elf but before she can get her hopes up, she hears the name “Keats” and sees a short, sickly elf being shoved on stage. She watches him shake and watches tears stream down his face as he listens to numbers being thrown around him. 

She tries not to, but Lup stares at his face and wonders who he’s left behind.

It’s not a minute until he’s auto-bought-- his hair is short and he’s _too_  young but he’s still an elf. Lup watches him finally break when a man in a suit saunters on stage with shackles. Keats tries to bolt but guards at the edge of the stage catch him. He screams and kicks and the audience watches like a garden of stone carvings, unblinking gemstone eyes boring eyes into the tattered scrap he wears for a shirt. 

Lup’s been to enough auctions that, at this point, she shouldn’t have a reaction. But she hears the announcer drawl that “Keats, Age Six, Ten Thousand Silver” has been sold to “The Gentleman in Green” and she clenches the fabric of her dress with a shaking fist.

Beside her, Kravitz is silent for the entire night.

Every time Lup sneaks a glance at him, he’s watching the stage with some sort of detached, stoic interest. He doesn’t ask a single question, doesn’t change his face, and she can barely see his chest rise up and down slowly. 

He didn’t ask why they were at the auction. He doesn’t ask when the auction is over, either.

Kravitz simply nudges his Little Master as they walk the streets back to their hideaway at the end of the event. When she turns her distant gaze to him there’s a moment where he regrets what he’s about to do completely.

He goes against his gut. “There’s a positive to this.”

Her large, sad eyes don’t even take his bait. Why can’t she be thankful? He doesn’t _have_  to do this. “What is it, _demon?_ ”

_And what makes you better than those bidders?_  He wants to snap at her, but he doesn’t. “Don’t you want to hear me out, at least?”

“Just spit it out,” she grumbles, scuffing her shoe against the ground. 

“You don’t have to wear that dress again.” 

Lup pauses in the street and Kravitz takes a few more steps in front of her before stopping as well. He stares at her expectantly and some part of him-- a stupid, _mortal_  part-- feels unjustly proud of himself. 

The feeling dies when Lup sniffs. 

Scrunches her nose, casts her eyes down, flattens her ears, and sniffs.

“I… I _like_  this dress. I like it.”

She shakes her head and pushes past him with an angry stomp. He stares after her, dumbfounded and in shock.

It’s the first time Kravitz sees Lup cry.  

 


	7. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tags added:  
> taako/sazed (not a good thing)

Lup stares at her brother and knows that something distinctly _bad_  is about to happen.

She looks from his hand to his face, searching, her heart still in her chest. But Taako keeps his eyes on Sazed--

His incredibly lovesick eyes--

And doesn't look at her again. He doesn't give her anything else.

“Babe, did we get someone to set up the tent?” Taako suddenly turns and he rubs his thumb over Sazed’s knuckles, a sweet smile on his lips. 

Sazed looks at Taako, his smile faltering for a split moment. “I- uh-- no. Do we have to do that?”

“Doesn’t set itself up, does it?” Lucretia says with a laugh and Sazed looks back to her in confusion. With a soft smile, she explains, “The Vagabonds are all for themselves. It’s a hive mind mentality that keeps us in a group. There’s no guards or helpers or real rules.”

“Ah.” 

“I can see if the Strong Man could help…?”

“No! No, no, it’s okay, I wouldn’t want to be any bother--” Sazed’s smile widens again. It's almost unnerving. “I'll have to--”

“I'll get it.” Taako says and this whole time Lup hasn't stopped staring at him but-- but Taako doesn't-- he doesn't _do_  jobs like this. Does he even know how to set up tents? They never had tents when they were running, and it’s not like-- not like a master to ask something so ridiculous--  

“Thanks, Taaks.” Sazed looks a little confused as well. There’s a moment where Lup feels something in her storm of shock and it’s _anger_. Who is he to say _Taaks?_ “But are you sure you can…?”

“I'm not _completely_  incompetent. I'll be quick.”

“I'll help.” Lup finds her throat spilling words that are too quiet. Sazed and Lucretia look at her and Taako looks at the ground, his expression blank. It takes everything Lup has to not look at Taako but to, instead, smile at Sazed. “I-It's no problem, really. I can show you where to set up.”

“That’s too kind of you, really.” Sazed says. “I’m sure--”

“C’mon, babe, she’s being so nice as to offer me help,” Taako pushes and Lup notices his hand go to his pocket.

Sazed doesn't look warmed up to the idea. But he looks at Taako for a few prolonged seconds and, finally, shrugs. “I'll, uh, come find you?”

“Sure. Find me.”

And Taako walks towards Lup.

His gaze is so odd and leveled. She can't see his curiosity, his eagerness, his-- she can't see _him_. Taako is too _serious_.

He stops in front of her and Lup swears she can feel time freeze. His breath puffs on her face.

“Well, lead the way.”

She does.

Lup turns and starts walking away, her mind silent and focused only on Taako, who trails her quietly. She listens to every step he takes, can feel every breath he takes, can hear his hair sway, even--

“Nice place.” He says after a few steps of silence. It occurs to Lup that there's no bag on his shoulders, no place to keep a tent.

“Y-yeah.” She responds, dread sneaking into her heart. It's not what she expected. They're out of earshot from Sazed-- what gives?

Does… does he really not remember her?

The thought hits her so suddenly she almost stumbles. 

Is that an _option?_

“How long have you been here?”

She hesitates and Taako falls into step with her.

He's _right there_.

Right there and she can't even _talk_  to him. 

“Around fifteen years,” She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, waiting, _praying_  for anything.

Taako smiles, soft and distant, but he doesn't look at her. He simply keeps looking straight ahead. “Like it here, then?”

“Y-yeah. I guess you could say that.

It's been awful lonely, though.”

He laughs but it's not _his_. Not loud. Not free. It’s soft and quiet and if she doesn’t focus it slips right out of her head and disperses in the air. But she _wants_  to hold it-- she wants to take every little bit of him that she can and she wants to keep it all to herself. She wants to hold it-- she wants to hold _him_  straight to her heart and never let him go. Nevermind anyone else-- he is _hers_  and she is _his_. 

That’s how it’s always been.

“Lonely in a room full of people? Taako knows _that_  game.” 

Just hearing him say his own name makes her breath catch. It’s like some sort of confirmation that she wasn’t sure she was waiting on-- that _is_  her brother. She's not sure she'll ever tire of hearing that ever again.

“You, uh… You've always been in service, then?”

“What? No, no,” Taako sputters, laughing a bit. “No, gods, that's not-- Sazed isn't my _master_.”

There should be relief but there isn't-- something inside Lup looks at Taako and gnaws at her. It's mistrust that leads her to say, “My apologies, but I thought…”

“Oh, yeah, it's this whole thing,” he interrupts and, with the slightest hesitancy, ads, “Yeah, don't even worry about it. Not my master.”

That did nothing to calm her aching heart. But she continues on, walking through the tents and only half heartedly searching for an empty space. There's no room next to hers and when she passes it she wonders how suspicious it would seem if she moved it to be next to Taako’s. 

She wonders if she cares.

That's the question-- why _does_  she care about whatever is happening with Taako? Why can't she just reach out for his hand and-- and tug him close because _gods_  it's been fifteen _years_  and she can't _speak_  to him-- why does she _care_  about whatever is happening with Sazed?

Well, she knows why. It's because _Taako_  cares. Even well out of earshot from everyone, Taako cares.

Lup finds an empty space near the perimeter of the cluster of tents and pauses next to it. Before she can say anything Taako claps his hand together. It's loud and awkward in the silence they've built (she's _never_  had an awkward silence with her brother, never once, never in so many years).

“Well, this looks as good of a place as any!” He says cheerfully and Lup turns to look at him. He's smiling and it doesn't reach his eyes.

He's staring at her with an intensity she hasn't seen in a while that leaves her breathless.

“Nice scenery, too,” he says, his smile gone as quickly as it came.

It's a question. Or-- or he's waiting, or trying to say _something_.

_What's wrong?_  she wants to ask, _Where did things go wrong?_

There's so much in her, so much love and fear, and it pushes Lup to take a step toward her brother. “Y-Yeah, sure is.”

And Taako takes a step back, his eyes widening. It's the wrong move but she's not sure if she cares.

“Get nice weather ‘round here?” His words are too quick.

It's too much.

“ _Taako_ \--”

“Tents! Right!” Taako lurches back as she reaches out and Lup stops, her hand hanging in the air like something frozen in time. With shaking hands he reaches in his pocket and withdraws a wand-- and it's the same one she gave him, seventeen years ago.

And as he withdraws it, a piece of crumpled paper falls to the floor. His eyes flicker to it only briefly before looking back at the space.

With only the slightest wave of his shaking hand, Lup feels _magic_.

None of the wisps of air that would hit her cheek as they swing sticks at each other, yelling fake spells and hitting the sticks on everything. There's no goofy words and fake “rules” to abide by.

Now there's actual _magic_.

And, before her, stands a fully formed and conjured tent. It's quite ugly-- brown and patchy and seemingly old--but it's still _real_  and completely tangible. 

It's not the apple he conjured, half purple and rotten, just a week before she last saw him. 

Lup stares at the tent, distracted and mystified. It's _real magic_ \-- powerful and beautiful. And she's _never_  seen Taako do something of this magnitude. 

When she looks at her brother he's staring at it too. He looks just as surprised as she is.

“That…” He whispers, and Lup can almost hear _something_ \-- some trace of a boy, young and stunned. “That's new.”

It's been so long but she almost impulsively laughs. She almost laughs and shoves into him and chides him. The ghost of a child _laughs_  and asks  _what did you think was gonna happen, goofus?_

Perhaps that's how she feels-- like a ghost, unable to interact with the world. Everything she says hits a wall and just barely pushes its way through. She's simply floating, watching another ghost, wondering how it died.

So Lup doesn't laugh. Doesn't chide him. 

“W-well, um-- I should-- yeah.” 

She stands and she watches her brother hurry away from her.

Lup stands there for so long and she feels like her heart is sand, crumbling as water falls on its suspended form. She doesn't try to cup her hands around it and prevent it from falling. 

She lets it crumble. She lets it fall apart. It's more painful than anything she's ever felt and she doesn't stop it.

Instead she stands and stares at the tent for so long. So incredibly long.

Before she leaves, a shell with nothing within, she picks up the paper Taako had dropped and clutches it to her chest with shaking hands. She only reads it when she's back in her tent, safe from any prying eyes (save, of course, two eyes that read over her shoulder diligently). It turns out to be a list, written in neat penmanship--

_ Eggs _

_ Flour _

_ Sugar _

_ Vanilla _

_Milk_

\-- and she spends the night memorizing it.


	8. Prologue p. 4

It’s in the dark of night that Lup feels most vulnerable and afraid.

The fear was easier to face when she was younger and with her brother, surprisingly. With him there came the naive concept of being indestructible. The fairy tales that they had only a few times through the passing wind in a caravan were far too outlandish and terrible for them to experience. 

When Lup and Taako were young, they believed, wholeheartedly and truthfully, that bad things didn’t happen to good people.

They believed the night was full of mystery and terrors and wonders-- but not for them. For they were only passengers and watchers, observers and wanderers, and they were too young, anyway. The long claws of the beasts could not reach them, nor could the malicious intent of a mermaid fool them. The faeries would guide them and the nymphs would hold their hands-- Taako and Lup would look around wildly in the night, but not out of fear. Out of curiosity and detached wonder.

Lup’s perspective of the night has changed since she was that young. But the night itself hadn’t changed a bit.

She runs into the night and feels afraid now. She knows the world, as young as she is, and she knows the terrifying variety it can provide at the drop of a pin. She knows the faces that peer out at her, unseen and quiet, that scrutinize and size her up for dinner. She knows the men that have glances that linger as she hurries by, suspicion and hunger behind their bloodshot eyes.

But Lup’s fear hasn’t changed the cover that the night provides her.

Her breath is hot as she bolts as quickly as she can. Her feet scrape against the dirt path before her and she trips a few times, feeling pain shoot through her bad ankle. She had to remove the cast for this and it wasn’t smart, of course, but she needed to do it.

Kravitz didn’t know. He would scold her when she made it back. 

She doesn’t care.

Someone behind her shouts out at her. She can hear his footsteps, heavy and scraping. 

Lup almost wants to turn around and apologize. She knows it’s not fair for him, and she knows that what she took was valuable beyond measure, especially in times like these. What she did probably ruined his day, and she’s not surprised that he’s still following her.

So Lup wants to apologize. But she’d keep running.

She’s not sure how far she runs-- the marketplace is so far out of sight by then that she can no longer smell the smoke of the bonfire or hear the sounds of the celebration happening. The town has slowly started to melt into a forest, thick and covered with trees. She follows the winding road, smooth save for the littered branches and rocks, and knows that she’s _so close_  to her tent, _so close_  to safety, and _so close_  to Kravitz.

(That is, if Kravitz kept his word and stayed put.)

Something soars past Lup’s ear and she yelps, ducking and clutching her bag of stolen goods closer to her chest. From ahead of her she can see a heavy stone land, skidding in the dirt and sending dust flying.

The man yells something else from behind her again, but this time it’s different. She can tell by the way the wind whispers and the words are a little more connected, with a little more _bite_  and a little less venom.

Lup has only a few seconds to throw herself to the side before the stone explodes. Static ripples from it in a wave of yellow energy and Lup feels her back skid and scrape against stones, a few shocks making her legs twitch. 

It doesn’t hurt, not that much, but it trips her up. It gives the man time to advance.

She watches, wide-eyed and helpless, nearly hyperventilating and clutching onto the bag tightly, as the man advances. He looks livid and he’s only a few yards away when he reaches into his pocket for something _else_.

Lup tries her best to scramble back and tries to remember, quickly, any of her defensive spells. In a heated panic she draws her wand and throws her faith into it, just as she had read--

She trusts it, and repeats this in her head like a mantra.

She trusts it and she’s _terrified_.

So from her wand sprouts three pebbles, light and no bigger than her fist, that fall around her like rain.

Fear spikes in her heart and spreads through her body, straight from the top of her head to her toe nails, and she does something, in that moment, that she’s never done before. It's a last ditch effort and it _has_  to work.

Lup takes a deep breath and calls for Kravitz.

It’s another move that she has to throw her trust into, despite not trusting him at all. She _has_  to-- she had read so many times in the book that this was a perk and that this _works._  In times of desperation, if she calls upon her summoned demon it _has_  to work.

That is, if she uses his name. His _real_  name.

The man keeps running and the fear in Lup’s body runs red hot, mingled now with anger. Seconds pass and nothing changes and she prepares to try casting another spell, still clutching the bag to her chest. 

Then, all at once, things change.

Kravitz doesn’t appear but the air suddenly thickens with heat and humidity, like an unseen explosion happened before the two blind bodies in the night. It engulfs Lup uncomfortably but not painfully, and the man, now only a few feet away from her, skids to a sudden stop.

Both of their eyes are wide and there’s a moment of solidarity as the two look around them, shocked and confused.

Then something unseen grabs at the man’s ankle and _pulls_.

There’s a clear sound of something snapping and the man yells as he’s jerked and pulled into the darkness.

Lup sits in the night-- breathless, stunned, and alone.

She listens but the man doesn’t shout. He doesn’t make any noise at all. Even if she squints, she can’t see where he was dragged off to-- she doesn’t know if it’s the darkness or Kravitz who’s to blame.

She has a pretty good feeling of which it is, though.

Lup quickly gathers herself and stumbles to her feet, favoring one foot, and searches in the darkness. Her breath is quick and she’s terrified--

Of being alone or of _not_  being alone, she’s not sure.

“K- _Kravitz!”_ She shouts, holding her back tighter than before. She looks around for those icy eyes and pointed fangs, knowing that he _must_  have come. “D-don’t _kill_  him!” 

The night is silent and still warm, for a few more seconds and the very real thought of Kravitz _not_  being there chills her spine. 

Yet seemingly straight from the darkness, materialized before her, a body is thrown at her feet.

Lup screams in shock but there’s no relief when the body quickly stands. The man isn’t bloodied, but he’s shaking and staring around them with eyes wide as the moon. He doesn’t say a word to her and he doesn’t even _look_  at her. He simply takes off running, much faster than he had been before, and Lup listens to his footsteps over her own pounding heart.

“You’re no fun.”

Only this time does she muffle her scream, but Lup still jumps and twirls quickly when she hears Kravitz behind her.

Kravitz is in the same shape as always-- his own cloak, his curled smile glinting off the moon, his eyes void and vaguely amused. His smirk grows when he sees Lup, panting and flushed.

“Got caught with our own stupid plan, did we now?”

She _hates_  to admit it. But seeing him sends a fresh breath to her lungs and calms her shaking, just a bit.

Somewhere, there is the pride in knowing that _he came_.

“Be quiet.” She mumbles, letting her grip loosen on the bag momentarily.

He only laughs.

“Ah, if only that were a command,” he turns on his heels and starts off towards their tent. Begrudgingly, and still struggling a bit to be calm, Lup follows. “Are you really that helpless, Little Master, that you must call upon me to deal with a _baker?_ ”

She thinks of the pebbles around her, briefly. “No,” Lup replies briskly, her breath and her wits slowly coming to her, “I know magic.”

“Then _use_  it.”

“But I have you,” she diverts.

“And I’m not a _plaything_. You could have easily taken that man.” Kravitz divulges from the dirt path and Lup follows in his footsteps, jumping over sticks he steps over. 

“Well, my magic wasn’t _working_  how-- gods, why are you so _insufferable?_ ” She tries not to falter as he shoots her a glare, half malicious and half inquisitive. 

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” She snaps, not quite caring anymore how loud she is in the darkness. Kravitz was damn _annoying_  and persistent, why couldn’t he leave her _be_  and just do his job? “Because you want to make my life _miserable_  and--”

“No, I meant _why_  is your magic not working?”

That's reason enough for her to finally pause, faltering her steps. Kravitz continues on for a few steps before turning and pausing as well. “What?”

“You don't know why?”

“Well, how would _I_  know?” He snaps. She's suddenly not too afraid of his fangs and how they shine. It's amusing to her, on many levels, that she knows something he doesn't. “I'm a demon, not a magician.”

“It's _common sense_ , Kravitz.”

“Well, look who's suddenly a professor.”

She smiles as he turns sharply and continues trudging through the forest. Lup follows him after watching him for a few moments. The darkness isn't quite as dark when he's there.

Lup’s got the most monstrous creature of the night with her. Nothing can touch her now.

“Magic correlates to emotions.” She starts, at this point not caring if he cares or wishes to particularly know. She knows something a _powerful demon_   doesn't. Normally she isn't so keen to show off, but for this instance, who _wouldn't_  flaunt themselves like a bird? “It reflects what you feel.”

“I don't care.”

“So if I'm happy, then the magic will be a lot more flashy, but maybe not as powerful. If I'm confident, then the magic will be more powerful, but maybe less flashy and pretty. It's all _intent_  and _emotion_.”

“Terrific.”

“ _Isn't_  it?” Kravitz finally glares at her and she laughs at him. Demons have such big egos.

“Whoever gave you knowledge was entirely wrong to do so,” he says, but a smile tugs at his lips that he can't hide. It almost looks genuine and not mocking. “And they are my next target.”

“Funny. But I'll continue!” He groans and she giggles again. “I was afraid-- as _any person_  would be, I'll have you know-- so my magic was weak and malfunctioned. It can do that if you're scatterbrained, nervous, upset, confused, or afraid.”

“I've never had an Encyclopedia be my master before,” Kravitz muses, holding aside a branch for her to pass. “I expect I'll learn _so much_.”

“I _did_  memorize this from an Encyclopedia, thank you for noticing!” Kravitz groans, louder, and she quickens her pace. “The more clear-headed you are, the more effective the magic. So I tried to make a wall of brick around me, but because I was scared, I only made a few pebbles. Understand?”

“No, Little Master, I blacked out ten minutes ago.”

“I wish,” she quips back at him. 

The adrenaline was wearing off from the chase, leaving her with the same excitement she had when stealing into the market. Kravitz looks at her oddly, probably sensing her good mood. Lup doesn't particularly care what he thinks. No amount of near-death experiences can deter her from her happiness for too long.

They're silent for the rest of the few minutes that lead them to the tent. It's not a particularly nice tent-- calling it a “tent” is actually being gracious towards it. It's more like a cloth, held suspended by two tree branches. There's no walls, and Lup’s “bed” is just a few blankets on the ground, covered in twigs and leaves.

It's one of the worst places she's had in a while. But she doesn't mind, not on that night.

She heads straight for the campfire that blazes low, skidding on her knees to sit before it and tearing open her bag with enthusiasm.

Kravitz watches her take out the stolen goods, sitting himself on top of her bed. He observes how she fiddles with smaller bags and takes out a leaf, long and nearly the size of a dinner plate, to set everything on. 

“... What are you doing?” He asks after a few minutes of silence. Lup looks up at him briefly. He can be awful curious sometimes, and normally she doesn't humor him, but her good mood won't be stopped.

“Baking.”

“I have eyes, Little Master.”

“I'm baking a _cake_.” Lup regards the ingredients before her, laid out neatly. “Haven't you ever baked a cake?”

“Why in the _hell_  would I ever bake a cake?”

“To celebrate how much of an insufferable bastard you are.” 

She mixes the flower and sugar together with her hands in one corner of the leaf. She doesn't have enough ingredients to make a large cake, but that's fine by her.

She and Taako had decided, so long ago, that food was better made authentic and without magic. Every year their birthday cake was to be baked with real (and stolen) ingredients only.

Of course, this cake wasn't for their birthday-- that was next week, sometime-- but the occasion was close enough to warrant the same rules. No matter how small or lackluster the cake would end up, she wasn't going to transmute _anything_.

“... you're awful cheerful.” Kravitz comments after some time, cringing at the sight of Lup mixing the vanilla, milk, and eggs in the bowl of some man's hat that she stole. “I don't think I like it.”

“Tough marbles,” she hums, combining the two mixtures in the hat. The batter is clumpy and getting dirtied but her hands, but she knows it won't matter in the end. “Tomorrow's going to be _fantastic_.”

Lup puts the batter back onto the leaf, finally holding it out over the small fire. It doesn't look like a cake, by any means, but at least it'll _act_  like one.

When Kravitz speaks again, it's softer than he normally is, and she almost freezes at his words. “You really think whoever you're looking for is going to be there tomorrow, then?”

But she collects herself quickly, a smile still on her face.

“He _better_  be, with all the trouble I went through to get this stuff.” She won't let herself think about what could go wrong. She's so positive that _this_  is the right one. So she only focuses on one thing-- the cake.

Taako was going to be _so delighted_.

Freedom and homemade cake, just a week before their twelfth birthday!


	9. Chapter 5

Lup doesn’t sleep that night.

As if her own world wasn’t imploding, crumbling from the inside out, making her fingers itch and making the fire perk, feeling her anxiety and her hurt and wondering when it becomes time to play-- the camp is the same. It is quiet, for at night the Vagabonds are either sleeping, performing in the marketplace just for the stars, or sitting around their own tents, whispering the gossip and the deals and the dreams that had filled their heads that day, leaving ambitions of a life filled with gold they cannot count.

Only the old, the young, and the fulfilled sleep.

The self-assured, the confident, the content.

Lup does not sleep.

She looks at Taako’s tent for so long, eyes wide and breath quiet. She looks until she remembers that Taako and Sazed will be coming _back_ , and suddenly the idea is terrifying to her and it spurs her to move.

She stumbles a few steps back, her eyes trained on the thing as if it’ll disappear if she turns away at all.

Then Lup pivots and bolts from the tent and she does not look back. She does not want to know if it will stay, if it will still be there if she looks again, or if it truly even exists at all. Lup does not look back, because Taako will either be there or he _won’t_ , and she doesn’t know which she wants.

For years-- years alone, years of eating what she could from the floor, years of sneaking behind bars and getting caught and years of punishments, of no voice on the other side of the door, of no accomplice in dastardly deeds-- for _years_  she has sought out one thing. Just one prize, one end goal, one thing to keep her going in the darkest of nights, one thing to keep her immortal and her soul ablaze.

And now that she’s found it, everything in her body screams that _she doesn’t want it_.

Lup would rather be lost than see him like this.

Because she can’t vocalize it-- she can’t say, not with words, what is so repulsive. She doesn’t know what it is about Taako that makes her stomach churn and the ground beneath her feet shake. There isn’t one thing that she can pin down--

From top to bottom, it starts with his hair. Long and beautiful.

 _Untouched_.

His eyes, frantic and dull and sharp and wary.

His smile, so forceful and _fake_.

She realizes only then thanks to that word, throwing open the flap to her own tent and stumbling inside, what bothers her.

Everything about Taako is _fake_.

He’s not--it’s not _right_. Nothing about it is _right_ , and this wasn’t supposed to be how things went.

She was supposed to find him and _buy_  him. They had ruled it out-- that was the plan, it was _always_  the plan. He’d either free himself or keep jumping houses, that was the plan, it was always the _plan_ \--

They didn’t factor this in. They didn’t ask each other, huddled in piles of hay or trading notes back and forth between beds, what would happen if something went awry. They didn’t ask each other what would happen if one of them went overseas. They didn’t ask what would happen if they were freed, or what would happen if they lost touch, or--

They didn’t ask what would happen if one of them died.

Because they were young and _immortal_.

Lup had doubted the plan so many times when she grew older-- she learned of her mortality and her inflated vanity and the way the world sang. She learned to question the _what if_ s and the possibility of the real world intervening in daydreams.

But the plan was all she had to hold onto. It was all her and Taako had left-- the only thing they could whisper back and forth over miles of separation. It was the one constant, the one thing they agreed would never change.

If either one of them escaped, and they would _always_  try, that would be the plan they followed.

 _This_  was not factored in, and Lup does not take any hesitancy in saying that it is her fault.

Lup doesn’t know how she got there, but she looks around her and there’s canvas, old and dirty. She stands in the middle of her tent own tent, large but scarcely containing more than two sleeping bags and a backpack, and feels a storm under her skin, a storm of fire and radiance, and she does not know what to do.

Her brother-- her _brother_ \-- is outside, close enough that she could touch him, but she _couldn't_.

She… she has to wait.

Why she has to wait she doesn't know. For how long, for what signal, for who to make a move-- she doesn’t know. Lup doesn’t want to wait. The impatience boils under her skin and brushes against the tips of her fingers but she has to let it fester and burn.

The fear in Taako’s eyes scared her, but it lets her know--

She has to wait.

There’s something he’s not saying and she has to _wait_  for it.

The flap to her tent rustles and Lup freezes in her pacing, her heart caught in her throat, but only the shape of a man, tall and comfortably familiar, greets her vision.

And in a single instance she knows what to do and her anxiety turns to pure elated relief.

“ _Kravitz_ \--” It’s almost instinct to run to him and she throws her arms around his waist, pressing her head against his chest because Kravitz has _always_  been there, always been a rock to her, and he's her answer today.

He falters, a hand ghosting over her arm hesitantly. “Lup…?”

“It's-- it's _him_.” She lets go of Kravitz and looks at his face-- his confusion and dawning recognition. “I was right-- he-- it was-- they came _here_. They're _here_.”

She waits for him to make a move, to say something, to guide her in any way--

Instead Kravitz looks at her with something nearing somber and she finds herself _bristling._

He doesn’t _understand_.

But that was fine. He’d be excited before long.

“Lup…”

“No! _No_ ,” Lup turns away from him and starts her pacing again. The energy beneath her, the pure restlessness, borders on aggression and she just contains her aggravation towards Kravitz. “No, you don’t _get it_ \-- it’s him but--”

Kravitz moves further into the tent and takes a seat on her sleeping bag, staring up at her with something soft, something sorrowful, and Lup hates it. Hates that he won’t _listen_  to her. She hates the way he runs his hand through his hair and hates the way he looks tired, _hates_  the way he breathes in and speaks. She wants his bite, she wants him to stare at her and smile and be _excited_  with her-- Lup wants him to be _with her_.

Instead he sighs and she _hates_  it.

“I… saw him. As well.” He says, hesitantly. It turns her heart around so quickly.

“ _See?_ ” Her face lights up and Kravitz sighs again but he _shouldn’t_. “You-- _gods_ , Kravitz, after so many years--”

“I know, Lup,” Kravitz whispers quietly.

“And-- and doesn’t he look _just like me?_ I _said_ \-- I told you! We’re _twins!”_

“I… yes, I saw. That’s...” He forces a laugh, even though it’s in that way that makes her feel so young and naive. “That’s how I knew.”

“Exactly!” She smiles and she can almost feel sparks coming from her, happiness leaking from her heart and festering to the surface. Suddenly it seems as if she’s never told Kravitz _anything_  about Taako-- does Kravitz know about how Taako laughs? Does he know about how _talented_  he is with cooking? Does Kravitz know about how her and Taako would play hide and seek and lather themselves in mud and call each other monsters-- does he know about the constellations Taako knows by heart, does he know how Taako makes her laugh--

“But… Lup, I know-- you probably won’t even listen to me, knowing you, but…”

Lup holds her breath when Kravitz stands, curling his clawed hands into  fists before shoving them into his pockets. “I followed them and--”

And Kravitz actually takes a step closer, like he’s going to _comfort_  her.

And Lup takes a step back.

Kravitz smiles at her, but it’s not that smirk. There’s no fangs. There’s regret and _knowing_ \-- there’s an apology and a plea to not shoot the messenger.

“Lup, you’re not going to like this,” is all he says.

And she _knows_  he’s right.

“I saw--”

And she doesn’t want to hear it.

“Just-- _follow_  them,” she whispers, and there's a ledge she teeters on the edge of.

Kravitz stares at her and she feels her world exploding, the roar of a million voices shadowing one, just _one_  voice she wants to hear. They’re getting off topic and off track and they need to focus. Kravitz just needs to _focus_.

The world just needs to _stop_ \--

“Lup--”

_“That’s an order!”_

\-- and so it does.

The fire beneath her stills and the entire night holds its breath. Lup is the only noise-- it’s only her panting, her shaking hands, her beating heart.

Kravitz looks at her and he’s _shocked_. His eyes are wide and he’s completely still, no longer breathing. The impressiveness that he carries with him, his large stance and his brooding figure, is gone. He’s not angry, he’s not joking, he’s not sad. He’s not even so much _afraid_. He’s just... still.

She hasn’t ordered him to do anything in years.

And… and Lup doesn’t have _time_  to be remorseful. Not right then.

Kravitz will understand. It’s her _brother_.

“Follow them,” she says, and somehow her voice _isn’t_  strong. Somehow she sounds afraid. Lup isn’t afraid, though-- it’s the _last_  thing she is. “Break rules. Sneak in the shadows-- I don’t _care_. Tell me what’s happening with my brother and tell-- tell me he’s _safe_.”

Lup doesn’t look at Kravitz. She can’t. She stares at her bare feet, dirty and blistered and bruised, and feels his eyes on her for the longest time. She waits for him to leave because _that’s what he’s supposed to do_.

Instead, he stares at her.

Instead, she feels a hand on her shoulder-- a weight that isn’t there, not really, for when she looks there is nothing but the night sky next to her.

When Lup looks up, Kravitz is gone.

And Lup is alone.

 

And from outside Lup’s tent, a thin figure shakes.

The figure lowers its raised hand, brushing against the entrance to the tent, and runs.


	10. Chapter 6

The leather is crafted out of hyde from unicorns-- a pair of them, both older than sixty. They were dying anyway, their magic depleting and the hunt for them growing more and more urgent by everyday poachers. Royalty gave their personal poachers more and more gold coins, pressing for the chase to be  _ faster _ and the result to be even more  _ grandeur.  _

The unicorns, at first, had to be in tact. Their fur, magically blank and clear of any tarnish at any time, had to be spotless. They were only allowed to be killed by magic so that no mark was made on the pelt and it could be sold for more, made into more, and admired more. The eyes had to be open and clear, the horn had to be sharpened, the bugs crawling along the ears had to be killed but the ears had to be without fault. After the kill, the hunter had to bow to them, to show respect to the majesty that had given its life to human greed.

Then the unicorns still had to be killed by magic, but blood on the pelt would not have been as big of a concern. It was easily cleaned, after all. The hooves had to be a crisp brown color, not cracked or bruised at all. The eyes could be closed, the horn could have marks, but they  _ had _ to be in shape. A thought would be sent to thank the animals.

Then there would still need to be magic. So long as there was no gash or large spot on the pelt, it did not matter what spell was cast to kill the beast. It did not matter what state the rest of the brute was in-- the hooves could be splitting and bleeding, the horn could be ripped from the skull and cracked in two, the eyes could be bloodshot and filled with pus. Only the pelt mattered.

After a three year hunt, the poachers were given a bow and arrow, swords, and explosives and the order to  _ kill _ .

And so they did. 

What was left of the hide was just enough to be made into a basket. 

 

The early morning is blinding in the wake of things. It seeps over and around buildings, lighting the sandy colors with vibrant oranges and reds. But the chill of the air penetrates these warm colors and, despite the false sense of heat, the townsfolk wander huddled under heavy shawls and cloaks.

Only a few people have their stalls set up and even fewer are buying from them. The busiest stall is one selling hot drinks-- ciders and wine and milk, all warmed by the fire behind the cart. Each drink is only a few pieces of bronze or a trade of some bit of food.

Buyers stand in line, rubbing their hands together, tugging their cloaks closer. The breath that they blow onto their hands curls visibly-- a cloud of thin, white smoke unfurls from their lungs and it doesn’t do much to help the cold, but it seems that everyone believes it to.

Even those who are not buying drinks-- those who are shopping at other vendors or are simply wandering breathe out these clouds, these visible breaths, without knowing.

The tired and weary horses, stiff from the cold morning, stand at attention at their tie-downs and breathe this smog. 

The dogs that lie at doorsteps, asleep and curled defensively against the cold, breathe this smog.

A raven lands on one of the only trees in the marketplace, long dead, and the air is still around it.

 

The snakes are black and yellow, their colors saturated and bright against the dull colors of the natural world. They are stripped-- black with yellow slits interrupting and painting the bellies. 

Their eyes are large and hard. It’s hard to see what they’re thinking, or if they are thinking anything at all. Most people claim that animals do not think-- they are there to serve, there to play their part in the world’s natural chain, and that is all. There is no personality, there are no preferences to conditions or foods, there are no attachments to people. However these snakes, the same people say, may be outliers. 

They seem to be a pair, bonded tightly together, identical in thoughts and in looks.

And they seem to think.

They seem to regard the world around them with intellect. They turn to each other and look at each other’s eyes when something happens before them, good or bad, like they’re almost waiting to see how the other reacts. They look at people not with malice, not with aggression or hunger, but with indifference. 

Or maybe it is not indifference, rather judgement.

These snakes seem to be smart.

And so they are kept in a basket that they cannot escape from.   

 

The raven watches the crowd with sharp, intelligent eyes.

It is searching. It had been searching all morning, near-frantically, for people who are supposed to be where they’re not currently. Its body is tired and nearly drained with exerting transmutation magic it had not used in so long, but something drives it-- something that will  _ not _ let it rest. When it sits in one spot in too long it suddenly pitches forward and stumbles and cries in pain, shrill and loud.

No one notices this raven. No one notices the pitch black against the reds and the oranges painted on the buildings and the sandy floor of the marketplace. It ruffles its feathers, feeling the uncomfortable pain build after only a few seconds of being still, and a child glances up at it briefly.

Quickly its eyes scan over the crowd, still searching.

It is in the corner of an alleyway, just barely visible to where the raven is perched, does it finally see its targets.

The raven sees two figures, breathing in smog and whispering to each other.

The raven takes flight.

 

The basket is set down in a patch of red, pressed against a wooden crate.

The lid is lifted and a slender forearm, clothed in a tight black sleeve, lowers itself to the basket. A fist is uncurled, slowly, and long, slender fingers reach to the basket. 

The snakes blink blearily in the sudden light, curled tight against each other, and they look oddly human with the gesture. They look at each other and at the hand-- then to the arm, then to the body attached to the arm, then to the gentle smile at the edge of it all.

Slowly they rise, fluid and propelled forward with a familiar action and a familiar situation. This is what the snakes do; this is their wild nature.

The snake on the left slinks onto the hand offered first, its tongue flicking out to the sensation that it sees as homely. It slides up the person’s arm and curls under and around, binding itself to the stage it is given.

The snake on the right follows a little slower, crawling onto the extended hand and holding tight onto the wrist as the hand is raised from the basket.

A different hand picks it up, gentle and warm, and carries it to a shoulder. It takes its perch and feels fingers, soft and loving, stroke its head.

A puff of white smoke curls around its head as lips kiss it and words it does not understand are whispered to it. The snake watches as the person then leans down and does the same to its other half.

The person straightens and starts to hum and the stage is set.

 

The raven only flies for a short amount of time, just over the heads of its targets, but it is long enough for what it needs to gather.

The two figures are engaged in conversation, mist flying around them rapidly. Only one of the people is really talking-- and, even then, it’s not so much talking.

It’s a whisper, fervent and almost panicked. The person’s face is twisted in some sort of unreadable expression-- pained and worried and scared, horribly scarred. Their hands are flying everywhere, gesturing wildly and with intensity. The gloves that they wear have holes chewed into the tips of the fingers. The shawl that they wear is not pressed, not clean, and not particularly in one piece. Their hair waves around their faces, getting stuck in their lips and coming undone from the braid that trails down their back.

The other person stares at them, eyes colder than the air.

This person listens with drawn, agitated brows. Their arms are folded and their hood is drawn, partially concealing slicked black hair.

The raven listens and it cries overhead.

The frantic person glances up quickly before going back to whispering. They do not understand the message the raven is trying to send-- they do not understand that they are not alone.

 

The show continues for only a little while.

The snake watches its pair play the role-- it watches the other curl around the woman’s neck, slowly and drawn out, so other people may gasp and point quietly.

The woman continues to hum and the snake must travel around her body, sliding between the slits in her tight clothing, creating a near grotesque sight. It must wrap around her and it must be gentle, it must not squeeze too hard. It starts its journey, traveling from her arm and sliding down her ribcage.

Its sibling travels up the woman’s body in contrast, starting to wrap around her face. It starts to create something of a blindfold, applying only enough pressure on its hold to keep on her and not fall. The snake watches this as it starts to traverse across her ribs, one eye on where it needs to go and one eye on its sibling.

The gasps of onlookers do not reach the snake’s senses.

It slinks around her back, creating a loop with its body, and continues to travel. The second snake creates a blindfold on the woman with its body and the woman opens her mouth. The snake gently lays its tail in her mouth and she smiles, blind and still humming.

The people onlooking are gasping and pointing and whispering amongst themselves. They call the woman words the snake does not understand and never will-- idiotic and trusting, they say. Ignorant and incredibly intelligent.

The three hold this pose for these onlookers, so used to the routine.

Lucretia lowers one of her hands to caress the snake around her stomach and she feels two points, sharper than knives, sink into her hand and she yelps with pain, red hot and sudden and unexpected.

 

_ “-- please, let’s just go, let’s not stay here, please, I don’t like it here, please, we have to go-- _ ”


	11. Chapter 7

She memorizes the note that dropped from Taako’s pocket when Kravitz leaves.

It weighs like a feather in her hand and she handles it with the tips of her fingers so carefully, as if it it might shatter if she moves too quickly. She looks over the looped and elegant style of how the letters are written-- every “E” that curls in on itself, every “I” that’s just barely dotted, the way the letters overlap and touch so close.

Lup is overdoing it and reading too much into things.

She knows,  _ immediately _ , that what is written on the letter is a recipe for cake. She knows that  _ they were always supposed to hand-make the cakes. _ That is all there is to gain from this letter, as far as she knows. 

But she feels trapped in her tent. She feels like she cannot move from the safety of it-- inside this tent there is only her. She cannot hear her brother outside, talking to Sazed-- in here the voices blend to one low murmur and he could be  _ anywhere, _ which is equally as comforting as it is horrifying. Lup, in here, is the only thing that exists as a singular entity. 

She is alone and the outside world is terrifying.

So Lup reads that note. 

Again.

And again.

And again.      

It’s a distraction from everything. She can’t think about Kravitz, she can’t think about Taako, she can’t think about the fact that she’s  _ waiting for Kravitz _ \--

Part of her brain tells her she shouldn’t be so caught up in Kravitz and in the absolute guilt that envelops her from  _ ordering _ him to do something. Years ago she would have reasoned that it’s his  _ job _ to not disobey her wants, and that  _ this is how things should be. _

But now? Just the thought of that-- that he’s  _ obligated _ to do her bidding-- makes her sick.

It’s sickening that she lost herself so much that she  _ ordered _ him to do something. It’s sickening that she didn’t immediately apologise. If she digs deeper then it’s even sickening that-- that she still keeps him  _ tied to her _ , because even if she  _ wasn’t _ fit to now take on the world, Taako has been found and  _ that was the agreement _ \--

Lup panicked and followed her heart, which told her Taako was more important.

And… and maybe he is. Just maybe this is still the same Taako she loves. But Kravitz is important to her, too. He’s been with her through so much and he doesn’t deserve what she did.

Except that, on top of everything else, is so incredibly overwhelming for Lup to think about.

So she doesn’t think about it.

She, instead, thinks about the note.

Lup thinks of  _ why _ he needed to write the note.  

She thinks of why he can’t just buy the ingredients off his memory, because cake is easy to remember and shouldn’t need to be written down. She thinks of when his handwriting went from the scribbles of an untrained child’s hand to this elegant, precise artwork. 

She thinks of his hair, and how long hair was deemed precious in servants. She thinks of Sazed, and what his relationship to Taako is, and  _ how _ Taako’s hair could still be long if he was a servant all this time. 

She thinks of the idea that Taako might have gotten out at some point.

She thinks of the idea that Taako might have gotten himself  _ back in. _

She thinks of Sazed’s fingers, hardened but clean and smooth, running through his blonde locks carefully and slowly.

That is the prompt that causes the tears to fall, and once they start they don’t stop easily.

Lup clasps a hand to her mouth and the first tears fall over his fingers and onto the trembling paper in her clasp. She quickly folds the paper up and puts it in her pocket because the idea that anything her brother has written, any physical evidence that she has that says  _ he is here, _ has to be kept safe and dry. She can’t her tears on this paper, she  _ can’t _ ,  because at the moment it is one of the most important things in her possession. 

It’s not even sadness that folds her over, that sinks her to her knees in the middle of her tent, her whole body shaking. It’s not anger, it’s not disgust-- it’s not even guilt.

It’s horror.

Complete and absolute horror that floods her limbs and numbs her fingers and freezes her heart. Lup’s breaths come in quick, shallow bursts, as if she’s staring down a knife at her throat and the initial shock of it will never pass. She’s loud and breathing becomes uncomfortable quickly, but the issue is so far in the back of her mind it’s almost completely gone. 

Lup’s lips tremble and her tears are silent as they streak across her face quickly, slipping through her fingers like silk. Nobody outside of her tent stops, but that’s not to their own fault. The people here  _ care _ about her, she knows they do, and if they saw her she knows they would stop.

But Lup doesn’t crumble like this. 

She hardly cries at all, in fact.

Her emotions breathe through her fire and can be heard in her performances. In her spins, in her hands as they move fluidly-- she’s jerky, she’s violent and sudden. The flames flare high, dangerously high, even for  _ her _ . They move from the playful friend she calls upon to a joke that’s been played out for far too long. Her face is not open-- her smile is gone and leaves in its wake a stoney expression. The fire, quiet and still waking, is not given time until she uses her fingers and snaps and beckons and  _ screams _ , aggravated, in the clicks and hums the fire understands.

That is how Lup breaks.

She does not crumble, not like this. She does not  _ cry _ .

But Lup stays on the floor and shakes and  _ sobs _ , her mouth forming a shapeless scream of agony.

And no one hears her, no one feels her pain, except for one person.

Lup is not sure how long she stays on that floor when the air shifts, ever so slightly, and a chill like cold fingertips tapping on her spine runs through her.

“I-- I…” 

His voice is so strangled, so hesitant, and she wonders if he’s ever seen her cry like this. It’s with a spike of shame in her heart that dies as soon as it’s placed there that she wonders if she should clean herself up. He’s seen her on her hands and knees, he’s seen her  _ begging _ castle guards to  _ let her go _ , he’s--

Through it all, he’s been there for her. He’s comforted her. 

But she wouldn’t listen to him, she was so rude, she shouldn’t be crying, she  _ ordered  _ him--

“K-Kravitz I-I’m so-- so--”

_ Sorry. _

She looks at him, because that is the least she can do.

And Kravitz is not angry, Kravitz is not upset, Kravitz is not nervous.

Kravitz is standing with his hands in his pocket, his icy eyes staring at her with something sad and quiet, and he’s not moving. It hits her, just all at once and in a sudden, violent burst of guilt and absolute agony. He’s waiting to report.

Kravitz can’t move because she hasn’t  _ let _ him.

The words bubble in her throat, so long unsaid and unused. So sophisticated, so  _ not how things work anymore. _ The burn her like poison, they claw at her heart and shred it to pieces. 

They stare at each other, because she can’t move, she can’t speak through her hyperventilating, can’t make the words come.

She looks at the pain in her eyes. She thinks about Taako.

“I--” Kravitz tries to speak and the words don’t formulate in his throat. They strangle themselves and Lup watches him try to push them out, try to get past the blocked air. A tremor runs through his body and the more he tries to speak, the more stumbled letters and sound omit from his mouth, the more he  _ flinches. _

She’s never seen him in  _ pain _ . Not like this.

He tries to whisper her name and he nearly pitches forward, as if something’s pushed him, and it’s such a human, flimsy thing to do that it’s what spurs her to blurt, “P-please-- wh-what did you-- report,  _ please _ .”

The piteous look he gives her, the relief and the  _ sorrow _ , breaks her heart.

“Your brother is okay,” Kravitz starts, slow and steady, but he reguards her on the floor with nothing other than sorrow. “He is not in harm’s way, and he has not obtained any injuries since the last time you saw him.”

His next words are blunt, and he trips over them in his own attempt in soften the blow.

“Taako-- he wants to leave. He is not happy here. I did not hear why. Sazed does not want to leave, and has plans to-- to stay. And he wants Taako to preform and integrate to the-- the Vagabonds. E-Earlier--  _ Lup _ \-- t-the-- I’m-- Taako w-was asking Sazed about you. If he had ever seen you before. If he knew you.”

Slowly her hand comes back up to her mouth.

It’s nothing that she couldn’t have guessed. It was nothing that should have surprised her. 

But Lup cannot stop her tears. She cannot tear her gaze away from Kravitz’s face; the shadow of pain in his eyes at not being able to say what he pleases, the look of  _ yearning _ to comfort her.

“T-thank you,” she whispers, her voice quivering. 

And she watches the tension bleed from Kravitz.

“ _ Lup--” _ he says, just a little too loud, and she watches him take a breath with her name. 

“ _ I-I’m s-so--” _

“I understand--”

“I- I d-didn’t  _ mean _ \--”

Kravitz rushes forward now that he’s released, now that he can  _ move _ , and as he crouches in front of her and wraps his arms around her and holds her head to his chest Lup wonders how much better she is than Sazed.

It’s a thought that gets cycled through her head quickly and in a hurricane, so loud and overwhelming, that floods out of her in tears she cannot hold back. She folds herself into Kravitz, pulls herself to his cold body and clutches at his cloak with her trembling, weak fingers. He is all she has in that moment-- the only concrete, the only tie to this world that reminds her that she is  _ here _ and has a history and connections.

He is her comfort. But he is obligated to be there.

It’s another thought that flies through the tornado.

“Lup, I’m so sorry,” he whispers into her hair, his frigid lips making shapes against the top of her head. “Darling, I’m so, so sorry.”

“I-I--”

“I don’t blame you,” he continues, “No one would. It’s okay.”

“It’s  _ not _ ,” she says through her sobs, her body shaking against his. “I…”

She doesn’t know what to say.

There’s too many things to say, too many things to think about, too many implications and too many messy situations.

It’s not like the letter in her pocket. It’s not elegant, it’s not pretty, it’s not organized. Things rarely are that orderly.

Lup thinks about her brother. She wonders if he would have kept the letter. She wonders if he has cried, too. She wonders if he carefully dragged a quill across the page and made sure to space his letters all the same. She wonders if he wrote it in a hurry. 

Lup wonders if she were given a pen at that moment, would she be able to steady her hand and write letters that connect and form a spiderweb of ink?

“Lup, this is a mess,” Kravitz says to her, softly, still on the floor with her even after the sun kisses the top of the sky and starts to fall. It almost makes her smile, and maybe if she hadn’t cried out her heart, cried out anything that could have held feelings once before, she would have. “But it doesn’t have to be.”

“T-that seems hopeful,” Lup whispers against him. Her body had stopped shaking, but she couldn’t tear her face from his cloak, couldn’t think about facing the world. She is a fire, tapered and stepped on and trodden out. She doesn’t have a spark to run with, not anymore. 

“Here’s what we know,” Kravitz goes on, shifting and loosening his tight grip on her. It’s only a slight difference, but she no longer feels as if his body is a shield, as if he were holding her together and he  _ knew _ he was. Now she’s free, but she’s not alone. “They’re not going to leave. Not soon. Sazed seems to hold the upper hand in-- in whatever they are.”

Lup nods against him and feels a sting at the corner of her eyes again. She blinks it back.

“There’s also something I… I didn’t tell you,” Kravitz says, and he hesitates only a little. She tells herself it’s not because he’s afraid of her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know if you would want to know.”

“It wasn’t relevant,” she whispers, her tired heart squeezing.

“It… no. It wasn’t,” he replies, slowly. “But we’re moving past that. Taako and Sazed are planning something for tonight.”

Things pause in the storm of thoughts.

She detaches herself from Kravitz a little, his arms still around her but now she can look up into his eyes. His face contains that calmness that she’s known for so long, now coupled with something… else. Hopeful. Conflicted. “W-what do you mean?” She sniffs, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

Kravitz smiles at her, hesitantly and carefully. “Taako is going into the marketplace tonight. He’s going to perform.”


	12. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy y'all!!! Sorry I've been absent for so long-- my laptop is currently broken and I'm in the middle of a Million things rn. I'm sorry to all the comments I didn't reply to-- I love you all so much, and thank you for sticking with me!!!
> 
> tags added: abuse mention

**__** __

Sazed had said not to mess up, and that he  _ really _ meant it this time.

Taako had held back and bit his tongue, wondering if all the other times-- all the other shouts and occasional hits and beratings-- were just playing around, then. Did they not count as  _ really meaning  _ it? Were those times not important?

He pulls a hair behind his ear. Five minutes.

He used to like performing, too. That’s the worst part about it all, to him. It was a positive in his life, always-- no matter how bad the situation, no matter how terrible things got or how awful everything else was, he could sneak away for a few hours of the daylight and show off to some people. It was never about the audience in that way. It was nice that they smiled and laughed, but it was never for  _ them _ . 

It was validation. It was love. It was attention.

It was a present, a free gift, that Taako gave himself.

Now it’s a chore and a hassle.

He thought he’d never tire of it. The more he could sneak away and perform, the better, right? Why have one piece of cake when you could have  _ two _ ? He was told by someone, a very long time ago, that indulgence and gluttony were only made crimes out of jealousy.

He believed them until cake was all he was allowed and the sweetness turned bland and tasteless on his tongue. Until the cake became a daily occurrence that turned to a mandatory thing that turned to a  _ punishment. _

Then he tried to starve himself out.

But Sazed never let him.

It was about encouraging his talent, first. (He was never supposed to know. Taako got caught one afternoon. He was  _ never _ supposed to see.) Then it was about the  _ people. _ Do it for them, because they love you so much. Then it was for the fame. The money.

The glory.

So here they are, Taako supposes-- out at a dark hour, finishing makeup no one will see in the dim lights, when he'd rather be asleep.

The flippant nature of his thoughts has stopped being so horrifying and ugly. He’s already cycled through his typical thoughts--  _ run, bash your head in, break your fingers, shout yourself hoarse. _ Taako does what he doesn't want to-- that's the nature of things. It's  _ always _ been the nature of things.

Tonight is different, though. Tonight his hands shake as he tightens the straps around his wrists. Of course he'd rather be sleeping-- he'd always rather be sleeping-- but tonight, above all else, he wants to be in a wagon. Tonight he wants be going  _ anywhere _ .

He peers out from behind the makeshift curtain. There's already people gathered around-- from what Sazed told him, Taako knows that usually Vagabonds don't have  _ sets _ . This is something new to the people-- even to him, really. He's never put in so much effort. He's never had  _ curtains _ .

Subsequently, he's never had such a big crowd.

Taako scans over the people illuminated by the torches. Sazed stares at the curtains from the front row. It makes him a little uneasy to see that intense stare, but he chooses to focus on him rather than the possibility of… of someone  _ else _ in the crowd.

Taako swallows thickly. He  _ knows _ that there's no way in  _ hell _ she's not in the crowd. It's not a comforting thought. It used to be-- he used to like imagining her in the throng of people, looking up and seeing him smile and thinking he's  _ okay _ and happy. He used to pretend that the better his performance, the more she'd smile. The more she would feel okay.

He's long since abandoned that stupid hope. It became real impossible, real quick. 

Taako shakes his head. He's not  _ focused  _ and he has to be. He has to forget about her.

Focus on Sazed.

Well… no, that's probably not good either. It's an easier focus point but it still makes him nervous.

What should he focus on? 

He smiles to himself then, suddenly realizing how  _ dumb  _ he's being.

Focus on the  _ show. _

 

Kravitz watches from the side, directly behind Lup in the crowd.

Normally he’d be stationed somewhere in the shadows-- this isn’t the first time that they have decided to sit in on a show and observe the performer for something  _ else _ .  They’ve spied on people before, of course.

But this time is different. This time, in comparison to the others,  _ counts _ . 

Kravitz knows the plan-- it’s a very passive plan, hardly even really a plan. They were to stand in the crowd, covertly but not  _ suspiciously _ , and watch Taako. They were going to see what he does, what he can do, and-- if they can see-- how he  _ feels _ about it all. According to Lup, he’s not good at hiding his feelings. Even if he  _ was _ , Kravitz is a demon; he’s dealt with liars since the time he was created, and Taako will not be the last. He doubts Taako can be  _ that _ good.

Once they’re done observing, they’re going to see where Taako goes. With any luck, he’s going to return back to the camp.

Kravitz knows the plan. Lup has  _ heard _ the plan.

She fidgets in front of him, her head turning towards the curtains and then towards the crowd. She’s looking for Sazed and waiting for Taako, and she’s not hiding it all too well. Lup’s been nervous the entire afternoon.

Kravitz moves up a bit and puts his hand on her shoulder. She leans back, just a bit.

“He’s not  _ here _ ,” Lup whispers to him, drawing her hand up and placing it over his. Kravitz wonders, idly and distantly, when this became okay. “He should be  _ out _ by now and I can’t find--”

“They’re here,” Kravitz mutters, low and under his breath. “Relax, Lup.”

“Easier said than done.”

They both look up as the stage is suddenly cast in a cooler hue, the torches on the sides of the clearing changing from their natural red to a bright, unnatural blue. The rest of the crowd collectively gasps and takes a step back-- save for one man at the front, in a white shirt, only noticeable for his indifference. Lup stares at the fire and Kravitz withdraws his hand from her shoulder.

“It doesn’t like that,” Lup says, breathlessly.

“We can’t do anything about it,” Kravitz replies, putting his hands in his pocket. “Our job right now, darling, is to enjoy the show.”

 

The fire pulses three times, slowly, each time changing color.

Green.

Yellow.

White.

The stage is cast in colors, easily seen since, for the first time in the marketplace ever, there's an actual  _ stage _ . It's a few pallets of wood nailed together-- nothing too expensive, it seems, but still a step up from the dirt the Vagabonds paint upon. A few poles, built to advertise different jobs or to hang up “wanted” posters, hang a red carpet serving as a curtain.

To the crowd, this is something completely new. From the setup they infer that whoever is up here is  _ not _ a Vagabond. Whoever is performing is not performing for the money-- which isn't to say Vagabonds perform only for money (if they valued money only, they would not live as Vagabonds); whoever is performing already  _ has  _ money. They can afford the curtains and the actual stage.

The crowd does not see the stitches in the curtains. In the low light, they cannot see the stains and discolorations. 

They do not know the curtains were stolen, and the slabs of wood were taken from a farmer's trash pile. 

In fact, they have no knowledge about what they are about to see.

 

Taako appears in a puff of smoke.

The smoke is not the typical gray-- it’s not even the consistency of smoke, and it omits no smell. The smoke is more the color of sand; yellow and, when it starts to disperse,  _ white _ . It actually glitters and glistens, sparkling in the wide eyes of the crowd.

The golden dust curls around Taako’s hands, slithering between his fingers and caressing through his hair. It floats around him, billowing around his outstretched arms, and, for just a moment, it looks as if he’s suspended.

Taako observes the crowd with far away eyes, looking as if he’s distinguishing each and every person’s face while not seeing a single one of them. Everyone stares at the dust around him-- only three people in the entire crowd look him in the eye. He purposely avoids their gaze.

These three people watch his face suddenly split in a dazzling smile, nearly as brilliant as the smoke around him.

He snaps the fingers on his right hand and the dust in the air suddenly  _ breaks _ , falling to the ground like sand. 

The crowd claps fervently. Taako takes a bow.

When he straightens, he once more looks at the people. This time he seems a bit more present, a bit more cheerful and alive. “Well,” he says, “What a crowd, am I  _ right _ ?”

With one quick, jerking movement he reaches down and scoops his hand over the sand. It follows his movement a few inches from his hand, and within a few seconds it has solidified into something like a golden snake, shimmering and glittering as it flows. It follows him as he twirls, his loosened hair splaying around him. 

Taako stops suddenly, planting his feet and arching his hand like he’s throwing a ball over the crowd. The snake, now impossibly large and made of all of the dust from the ground, opens a sculpted mouth and lunges. It’s form disintegrates once it hovers over the people, and they are all showered in glitter. Children raise their hands, watching the sparkles in wonder, and adults whisper to one another in alarm.

“What you are about to see,” Taako says, loudly, as the excitement fades and eyes turn back to him. He stands confidently and his words flow from his mouth smoothly. Taako doesn’t stutter, doesn’t make amendments; he hardly  _ blinks.  _ He doesn’t think, not in that moment. He  _ flows _ \-- he runs with the script he’s written. “Is something  _ nobody  _ has  _ ever _ seen before.”

With a twirl of his hand-- some watch closely, aware of sleight of hand movements, trying to catch him in what he may be about to do-- he holds out a playing card with the back to the audience. 

“Watch closely.”

He moves the card between his knuckles and flips it to face the crowd.

Ace of hearts.

He flips the card again, twirling it in a full circle until the face is back to the crowd.

Ace of spades.

He flips it again.

Ace of diamonds.

He flips it again.

Joker.

When Taako goes to twirl the card again it doesn’t stop at the crowd. It keeps turning on his knuckles, slowly going faster and faster until it starts to spin quicker than possible. Taako opens his palm and it moves there, spinning and spinning on its own like a child’s wooden top.

He hovers his hand up and down, letting the crowd clap and marvel at the trick, before jerking his hand up to throw the card in the air.

As it spins it becomes almost a vortex; imperceptibly a card splits from the Joker, shedding off of it and falling to the ground. More and more cards start splitting from the spinning Joker until the Joker becomes a fountain of playing cards. They spill over Taako’s hand and cascade to the floor in a continuous flow, scattering everywhere. 

After a long stretch and after the applause dies, Taako suddenly closes his hand around the original card and the fountain stops. 

He holds the card above his face, facing the audience. The curl of his lips frame the card as the crowd looks in wonder.

The face of it is blank, save for being completely covered in the same golden sand that lies on the floor of the stage. After a split moment-- after everyone can see the card-- it suddenly falls apart, much like the snake had. 

Taako winks and blows the sand into the crowd; the show has begun.

 

The show goes until midnight.

People come out of their houses to watch, knowing that in the morning they will need to be up before the sun for work. They are called in by the constant colorful smoke bombs-- by the fire that changes color every so often, by the cries of falcons that are conjured by the movement of a few fingers over a rock. They marvel continuously as a bouquet is turned to pure gold and a deck of card is turned to stone and sand is thrown into the air and stays there, white and brilliant as stars.

Most people pay close attention but cannot fathom what they are seeing. Magic, true magic, is a thing not known by commoners and not displayed for or by commoners. They watch Taako’s hands, trying to see the secret in his sleeves that are closed off by leather bracers. They watch closely as his hand hovers over a marble, but cannot come to a reason as to why the marble unfurls itself like a snake being released from a can.

Most people stop trying to solve the magic by the end of the night. They know, or most of them know, that it is useless to even attempt to do so. 

Most people come to the Vagabond’s show to escape their life, already so thinly masked with smiles and glitter. They know the secrets behind the mysteries of the world-- the answers lie in pain and being  _ aware _ of things. Seeing these shows allows them to slip into oblivion-- it allows them to become children again; so thoughtless, so blinded by wonder.

Most people do not consider to think that what they are viewing is actual magic, for most people know that real magic is illegal.

Most people know that they would be killed if they were to do what is being shown to them-- granted that what they are seeing is real magic.

Most people do not see that the guards that usually frame the marketplace are not watching the show purposefully. 

Only three people in the crowd know the truth.

Only three people in the crowd watch the falcons, living and breathing as the day, fly high into the night sky. Only three people see their breathing start to get laboured and heavy and hear their shrill cries suddenly become strangled and forced. 

Only three people watch the falcons convulse in midair, dropping to the roof of a nearby building. 

Only three people watch the falcons writhe painfully and die slowly.


	13. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see y'all!!! I'm sorry for bein so shit at updating and not responding to comments-- I was traveling but We Out Here Now, Boys!!

The Vagabonds are in an uproar when Taako and Sazed return.

Lup is the first back to the camp, and like all good town gossip the Vagabonds know what’s happened during the show before the performer can even tell it themselves. She enters and is immediately drawn to the fire at the middle of the camp. Most, if not all, of the camp’s consistent occupants sit around it, talking with more than the fire reflected in their eyes.

Lup approaches slowly, hesitant for the first time around these people. Kravitz is still in the marketplace-- not that he could carry much weight with some of these people anyway. And though she enters quietly the fact is that no one is against her-- no one has, to her knowledge, drawn the conclusion that she knows something more about Taako and Sazed.

She is not the opposition. She is not the voice against the crowd.

Not yet.

“It was so  _ obvious _ ,” someone says, and Lup looks over and sees Carey, twirling one of her throwing knives. She’s sat up on a log, her emerald tail swishing behind her with irritation. She doesn’t look happy. “I’ve  _ done  _ sleight of hand, and--”

“I agree,” a small man, Davenport, says. He’s sat next to Magnus. His pocket watch and golden chain glitter in the firelight. He looks more than unhappy. “No holes, no fake thumbs.” Carey nods, and a few murmurs of agreement rise.

Lup finds Magnus and Julia in the circle and quietly moves to sit next to them. The lions are missing, most likely in their tent, and Lup wants so badly to have something to hold and focus on. Julia glances at her, briefly, before speaking up. “Lup was at the performance.”

The people pause. The fire flares, just a bit.

Lup swallows, nervously.

She’s always been outspoken about the truth. She’s in the Vagabonds as a performer-- not a thief or a liar, and not a  _ magician. _ Speaking with fire is something anyone could learn, though it  _ is _ difficult, and therefore technically not illegal. But Lup also walks a thin line. She’s had Kravitz study the law over and over, had him listen to the gossip and learn any of the changes before anyone else can.

If anyone there can identify real magic, it’s not her.

But Lup can say if the magic, real or fake, is  _ illegal _ . And  _ that _ is what the Vagabonds care about.

“It was nothing bad,” she says, quickly, without thinking too much. She can’t hesitate too long-- after all, there’s nothing wrong. Nothing to hesitate over. “Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.”

She looks anywhere but at Davenport as she talks-- there is no leader of the Vagabonds, not really, but he’d be first in line if there was. And he needs to believe her. 

There are a few key people sitting around that campfire that she needs to count on. 

Lucretia will not stop looking into her eyes. 

Lup choses her next words carefully,  _ knowing _ that she’s lying to experienced thieves and conmen that have stolen from Kings. She  _ knows _ Davenport will see her sweat, and she knows Carey will see her fingers twitch and she  _ knows _ that there are at least three people sitting around her, counting every time she blinks and remembering every corner she looks into.

Kravitz doesn’t need to blink. Lup does.

“There… there  _ was _ magic.”

So Lup does not lie.

“But the guards looked the other way,” She clears her throat again. “I think Sazed paid them off.”

“Paid them off?” Magnus asks, finally turning to look at her. “Those aren’t the town guards.”

It’s the unspoken fact which hangs in the air that silences them all:

The King’s guards, the  _ official _ guards, are much too expensive to bribe.

“Well, I don’t know,” Lup responds, a little snappish, “But they weren’t watching for one reason or another.”

“I don’t like it,” Davenport says. Lup chances a look at him and he’s nearly standing now, brows drawn together and a frown on his usually cheerful face. A sinking feeling nests itself in Lup’s stomach, bile rising in her throat. “I don’t want to chance  _ anything _ .”

“I agree,” All eyes turn to Lucretia as she sides with Davenport, her face much more placid and solem. Lup tries to catch her eye, tries to plea with her. Tries to tell her that there’s something  _ different _ . 

Lup cannot tell anyone about Taako, not until she knows what’s happening, but she can try to get Lucretia to delay any large choice. Lucretia has been with the Vagabonds much longer than she has, and she’s also known Davenport for longer. She can be Lup’s in.

“We were  _ just _ allowed to set up camp here,” Lucretia continues, looking around the group. “Laws are cracking down. Any tiny upset, any reason they can get to kick us out-- they’re going to take that reason.”

Davenport nods. 

“And I--”

“ _ Lup. _ ”

A cold hand lands on her shoulder and Lup just barely stifles a scream, jumping in her seat and whipping her head around.

Kravitz stares at her, looking more than deflated and annoyed.

The whole camp stares back.

“Well,” he says, louder than a whisper now, moving forward and taking a seat beside her. Lup doesn’t notice the looks some of the people shoot him-- she just observes Kravitz’s face, trying to get anything she can, but he’s just as stoic as ever. But Lup  _ knows _ he’s hiding something. She knows he knows things they don’t-- he  _ has _ to. “So much for being inconspicuous.”

Davenport clears his throat, but now only half of the people look at him. “...  _ As _ I was saying--” 

“If I may,” Kravitz says with complete disregard for Davenport.

He doesn’t meet Davenport’s glare. Julia hides a smile behind her hand. Magnus nudges Julia, but he’s smiling too.

“As someone who is arguably  _ all _ magic, I knew Taako was a wizard. I may have exercised some of my own magic to avoid a scene, as it may have been.”

Kravitz looks at them all and he blinks his pale blue eyes. “I have  _ also  _ told Sazed that a portion of every show he performs must be given to Davenport, who is the leader of the Vagabonds.”

Davenport finally meets Kravitz’s eyes.

“You  _ what _ ?”

Kravitz shrugs, leaning back in his seat. Lup’s heart has stopped beating. “The revenue from that show is unlike anything any of us has brought in. It’s something new, whether or not it’s better than any of  _ our _ shows. The people aren’t going to turn us in, they  _ love _ it. So long as I keep averting the guards? There will be no problem.

“And as for the funds? Davenport, who is a responsible man, will either ration them out or use them to buy food for our younger… companions.”

The silence over the people was nearly tangible. But hardly anyone dared to speak up to Kravitz-- that was why Lup needed him there, at that moment. Those who were fearless enough to speak up to him coincidentally, in this case, agreed with him.

It did not stop the looks from flying across the fire. The confused, indignant, angered stares that landed anywhere but on Kravitz’s face, though his own iced eyes observed each and every one of them. 

“I didn’t say it was a  _ great _ idea,” Kravitz added, after a few moments of silence. “But Sazed and Taako are on their way back and will be here soon, so we might want to workshop this later.”

They scattered like vultures.

A claw grips Lup’s arm and she falls back, letting Kravitz lead her away from the panicked people. It’s not that the Vagabonds are particularly shameful people-- they just happen to keep to their own, and Taako, much less Sazed, is not a part of that group. Not yet.

Kravitz brings her to their tent in silence, passing by people hurriedly trying to close their doors and blow out their lights. No one says a word to them-- they hardly even glance their way. To all outsiders nothing has happened and no one has witnessed anything.

“It’s not good,” is the first thing Kravitz says after he’s tied the door to their tent. “But it’s not terrible.”

“What did you gather?” Lup asks, but she doesn’t wait to hear the answer. “He didn’t look too upset, right? He seemed fine to me. Did you see that? I--”

Kravitz sits on their cot and waits for her and she feels like a child again, somehow, because they both know what she’s doing. They’re both waiting for her to calm down but she can’t, because things were fine earlier but now that she’s heard what the Vagabonds think and she’s alone things are racing.

“He did seem fine,” Kravitz interjects as soon as she pauses for a breath. “It’s everything I saw  _ around  _ him that wasn’t fine.”

“I know,” Lup sits next to Kravitz, a fire dancing impatiently in her palm. “The falcons.”

Kravitz nods solemnly. “I didn’t like that either. But hopefully he’s just upset or distracted by you and not sick or anything.”

“Why would you say that? Do you think he looks sick?”

Kravitz glances at her, somewhere between inpatient and horribly, wonderfully patient. “No, I don’t. But I also don’t know a thing about him, Lup.”

“Sure you do,” she responds, immediately. “You know me, and that’s just as well as knowing him.”

Lup doesn’t look at Kravitz. She can’t look at that gaze that she knows he’s giving him-- she can’t be beckoned to thinking about when the last time she saw Taako was. When the last time she  _ talked  _ to Taako was. 

“... Well enough,” is all Kravitz says to that, and gods bless him for it. “Though I will say that what’s not good is what’s happening with Sazed. I don’t… I can’t figure out what they’re doing.”

“What do you mean?”

Kravitz sighs, leaning back a bit. He’s choosing his words, Lup knows, but she wishes he wouldn’t. “Well… I talked to Sazed after the show. He’s… he’s very charming. He doesn’t act like the typical masters we’ve met before. I asked him about how the show is run-- he hasn’t met me yet-- and he told me how it was mostly Taako who orchestrates it. He used Taako’s name, which was the first confusing thing. He said they’d been performing for just a short while, and that this was their first official ‘show’, but they’ve got ‘plans.’

But I don’t think he was telling the truth. Or… or all of it, if anything. The type of magic Taako used on the stage--”

“I know that magic,” Lup says, and this time Kravitz is the one to look surprised. “He’s been working on it since we were kids.

When I got older, my magic died out. Remember? I stopped with fire magic but I picked up fire communication. But Taako must have never stopped practicing his art, because there’s no way that he can do that without many years of practice.”

Kravitz just nods thoughtfully. 

“The fact that Sazed talked about ‘expanding’ is troubling me, though,” he murmurs after a while. 

“Why?” Lup asks, though she mostly already knows the answer. 

“I don’t know if he understands this-- this whole balance that performers and authority have. The Vagabonds don’t… they don’t  _ expand _ . And they certainly don’t do shows that big.”

Lup leans back, crossing her arms and sighing. “You think they’re going to get into trouble.”

“If not with the Vagabonds, it will definitely be with the royals,” Kravitz hesitates, just for a moment. “Lup, I didn’t avert the guards.”

“I know,” she mumbles, because she’s always been able to tell when Kravitz is lying. The acid in her stomach hadn’t settled since the meeting. “But if he  _ could  _ bribe the guards-- if he has enough money for it, that is-- why would he perform?”

“Same reason we do it, I suppose,” Kravitz replies with a shrug. “Fun.”

Lup shakes her head, remembering the writhing birds. “I don’t know. It seems like there’s something bigger than that happening.”

Kravitz sighs and there’s silence for a moment as both of them realize what there is to do--

Nothing.

“I guess we just wait it out, then,” Kravitz says after a minute of silence.

“I guess so,” she parrots quietly.

Lup feels Kravitz’s eyes on her, calculating and wondering. She can tell when he’s lying but she could never guess what he’s thinking, not really. He’s so much smarter than her-- it’s age and the knowledge only those who can see everything and nothing at all have. He’s intimidating that way; that’s never changed. Lup doesn’t expect it to, honestly.

“Lup,” he starts, and she doesn’t even try to look at him. “I… Haven’t wanted to bring this up, but you  _ do _ know that I--”

He’s interrupted by a waving hand poking itself inside their tent door.

“Hello? Uh, I don’t-- um-- do I knock? Is that-- how-- hm. Is anyone-- can I come in?”

Lup and Kravitz share one brief look before Kravitz’s face splits into a devilish grin and he shrugs.

“Come in,” Kravitz calls out to Taako.


	14. Chapter 10

Years of words left unsaid hang in the air like little clouds. They drift about, to and fro, and wait for someone to pop one and say something. Shapeless and soundless but as meaningful as anything. They wrap around shoulders and slip between lips with gentle abandon, suffocating and liberating and freeing. Just one could bring about something that was postponed for far too long.

No one moves.

No one says a word.

Taako is alone as he enters the tent, turning around and quickly closing the flap behind him. His hands are shaking and he looks awful; the glitter from his show still hangs in his hair, but his hair is now out of place and unruly. The leather guards he had on around his wrists are loosened and hanging upside down and the boots that had reached all the way up his thighs had fallen and bunched around his ankles. 

As he turns to face them again he smoothes down a strand of his hair. Lup notices that he’s never dyed it. It’s still the same golden tone from when they were kids. It’s beautiful and even if it’s knotted at the moment, she can tell that it’s well taken care of.

She wants to ask him what happened to it, but she’s terrified of the answer.

After all, the longer the slave’s hair, the more valuable and beautiful the slave is deemed. Untouched hair somehow symbolizes purity in the trade-- a child is worth as much as their hair. Scars and blemishes and cuts and bruises be damned; if the hair was untouched, then the price was raised considerably. Lup could never find reason behind it, but then again she could never find much reason behind anything anymore.

She almost subconsciously brings a hand to her own hair, which is now barely past her ears. It was her first act of defiance; a piece of broken mirror and two minutes had gotten her a week in the cellar. Taako had cried. He had begged her not to do it, to keep quiet, to just  _ leave _ it because it wasn’t worth it. He was angry with her when she was finally allowed out, dizzy with darkness and hunger and stumbling over her own feet. 

Lup kept it short ever since. She would not be anyone’s plaything. She would not be anyone’s doll. She was stronger than those who ever dared to hold her captive.

Taako smiles unevenly. 

He looks so different from here-- he’s not what Lup had imagined or how she wanted him to be. She can’t tell, can’t quite remember at the moment, what she  _ had _ wanted or expected. For so many years she had pictured Taako as someone who had grown to be beaten down and decrepit. She never expected to find this golden glitter or the dazzling smile and she never expected to see his beautiful hair still so well kept after.

Taako looks worse for wear. He’s thin and disheveled, but he’s also in one piece. But maybe, she thinks, that’s worse than anything she could have seen.

They stare at each other in that empty space, terrified of looking into the other’s eyes but also wanting nothing more. Twelve years is a horrifyingly long time. Back then they were kids and they believed the world would stay the same and wait for them. The jokes they had told in whispers would still be funny, the clothes they wore would still be ratty, and they would still only trust in each other and no one else. The world was only them, and so it was quiet and wonderful and small.

Twelve years and they are no longer small children. Twelve years and they are grown adults, with interests and likes and dislikes and stories and thoughts that the other can no longer predict and finish. 

Twelve years and Taako’s favorite food used to be cake and he wanted to be the first one to walk on the moon.

Twelve years and Lup’s favorite food used to be candy and she wanted to design dresses for dragons.

Taako’s eyes glance at Kravitz briefly.

“He’s okay,” Lup says, breathless and quick. Taako looks back to her. She can’t take his eyes off him. She drinks in the sight of Taako so greedily, like he might just dissolve into thin air if she looks away. Lup can’t help but feel like he will-- like she’ll blink and he’ll shrink back to a memory. “He won’t tell anyone.”

She spares a glance at Kravitz as well but  _ he _ had disappeared, straight into thin air, likely to give them privacy. Lup had been thinking absently about how she would have wanted to reunite with Taako alone, because maybe it might have been weird to have other people there, but now that Kravitz is gone she’s almost… almost  _ afraid _ . 

Lup just doesn’t know what to do. She used to have this list in her mind of things she would do when she first saw her brother again. She can’t remember it at the moment, but she can remember that this list used to be a crutch. This list used to mean everything. It guided her, pushed her, held her hand through the darkness. Everything would be perfect, this list said. Now she can’t remember a single thing on it.

“Is he…” Taako clears his throat, waving his hand stiffly.

“No!” Lup says, even though she doesn’t quite know what Taako was assuming. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good-- even if it was the truth. “No, he’s just… just a friend.”

“He just  _ evaporated, _ ” Taako sounds apprehensive and hesitant.

“I… yeah,” Why is she lying to him? It leaves her with a sick feeling in her gut but there’s something inside her that knows Taako cannot find out who-- or rather  _ what _ Kravitz is. Maybe it’s the fear of Taako’s judgement. No one is ever too keen on Kravitz when they learn he’s a demon, because it entails many horrible things and can bring about many awful assumptions about  _ her _ . Normally she never cares what these people think, and normally she’d think that Taako wouldn’t be one to judge. But sometimes people’s assumptions are true. “It’s a long story,” Lup continues evasively, “but he’s safe. He’s… he’s been helping me.”

Taako nods. “Helping…?”

Lup clears her throat. It’s starting to close. “To find you.”

Taako finally looks her in the eye.

She wants to run to him. She wants to jump up and tackle him in this long, steadying hug that she’s needed for over  _ ten years _ . She wants to feel his spine again, to breathe in his smell, to feel his hair between her fingers again and to feel him with her once more. This is her other half, the piece of her heart that she’d been chasing after for so long. Years of tears and blood and turmoil and constantly moving, never stopping, never  _ breathing _ \-- it was all because of Taako. It was always for Taako.

The ramshackle homes. The stolen food. The sleepless nights. The lonely birthday cakes.

Lup had been waiting for this exact moment, and somewhere in the back of her mind she had never even really been sure she would get it. But now that it’s here…

Neither of them move.

“I never stopped,” Lup whispers, because Taako’s face is blank and unreadable. He looks away and that’s what makes her stand. She can’t let him slip away like this. “All these years-- I’ve been trying to find you, Taako.”

He’s silent for so long. When Taako speaks again he doesn’t look at her. “I know.”

She takes a step closer. Something’s wrong. Something’s not happening that  _ should  _ be happening. “You  _ know _ that, right? I… I promised you, remember?” Lup smiles so carefully. She’s terrified suddenly. “The night I got out, I--”

“I remember,” Taako interrupts quietly. “I remember everything about that day, Lup.”

“Then what’s  _ wrong _ ?” Lup takes a step forward and Taako still won’t meet her gaze.  _ This can’t be happening. _ “I-- Taako, we  _ did _ it. We’re  _ here _ . I… I know what-- I know that Sazed-- but we can-- we can  _ run, _ Taako. Just you and I. Leave them all behind.”

At the mention of Sazed’s name Taako had looked up, just briefly, and shook his head. “That’s-- he’s not really the problem.”

“Then what  _ is _ ?”

Taako smiles bitterly. Lup has never seen that look on his face before. “Just… so many things, Lup. You can’t even understand.”

She’d been getting closer, somehow, and with those words she puts her hand on his arm gently. He stares at her grip and so does she, as if both of them are surprised that she’s even dared to touch him, but Lup has to move quickly. “Then  _ tell me _ . Let me help you, Taako, I-- ten years and I’m not losing you again!”

_ I barely have you at all, even now. _

“I don’t care what’s been going on, Taako. To the gallows with Sazed for all I care--  _ ten years _ , Taako. You’re my  _ brother _ and I  _ love _ you. Nothing will change that, and I--”

Lup stops as the air is knocked from her lungs when he hugs her.

He lunges forward and wraps his bony arms around her tightly. He’s so much stronger than she had expected him to be-- she’s stunned for a moment as he buries his head into her chest. Taako is shaking,  _ crying _ against her and not letting go.

She follows his lead after only a moment.

The two of them sink to the floor, wrapped in each other, and for the first time in over ten years the both of them are able to breathe.

Taako laughs, actually  _ laughs, _ and tells her that he’s missed her. He’s missed her so much. More than anything. He loves her. He’s missed her. He needed her.

Lup wonders when the last time was that Taako was told that he was loved. She wonders if she was there for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, taking a sip of that good good Loving The Twins juice,


	15. Chapter 11

In the dead of night, watching two shadows embrace each other, Kravitz has a lot to think about. 

He stands both outside and within the tent, seeing everything and seeing nothing. He watches through Lup’s eyes; he sees Taako’s hair, he feels the smooth strands, he listens to the both of them cry. He feels Lup’s heart, he feels the pain and the love and the simple and pure  _ energy  _ within it, bursting at the seams and barely being contained in one physical being.

Kravitz meets Taako. He really looks at him, past the brief glances and the dazzling smiles. Kravitz sees a mortal who is just like everyone else, but somehow also  _ different _ in a way he can’t put his finger on. Something that interests Kravitz. Something he’s never seen before. He won’t think about it too much, not right now.

Lup’s right-- Taako’s a lot like her. They are  _ twins _ , after all, and though Kravitz doesn’t think they’re  _ extremely  _ identical, they share many features-- physically and mentally. They have the same ears. They have similar hair. They have freckles, they both have that lanky figure, they both have the same smirk.

When Taako leans back from Lup’s embrace, Kravitz sees that when they cry, both of the twins’ faces turn red and puffy.

But, Kravitz thinks, besides a few basic things, Taako and Lup are very, very different.

Kravitz has a  _ lot _ to think about.

He turns away from the tent, retreating his senses until he is back within just himself. So many things swirl around his head, whispering in his ears and in the front of his mind and rotating to the back when they’re done. He can’t be dispersed-- he wants to sort through it all, to figure things out and be just  _ himself _ , even if that’s not a particularly nice thing to be.

If he thinks about  _ just _ Lup, without their connection and bond, things will be easier. 

Lup, his Master.

Kravitz starts walking back towards the marketplace.

He avoids the thing that whispers at the forefront of his everything. For all the wrong reasons, he doesn’t want to think about that. It’s stubborn and stupid of him to avoid it, of course, but he tells himself that he just doesn’t want to talk to Lup about it, so why bring it up with himself at all? Lup was so upset-- it would be cruel to mention it now. 

She still needs him, Kravitz thinks to himself. The terms probably shifted, right?

Kravitz passes by many of the tents owned by the Vagabonds and most of them, if not all, aren’t lit up. It’s the time of night, that precious three hour window, where the world sleeps and prepares itself for another day. The sweet calm after a bright and fiery show, before the farmers wake with the sun, where the darkness of the night is able to finally breathe and stretch its limbs. It’s the time of night when Kravitz gets to be awake.

He blinks and he is standing in the marketplace. His boots are muddy but he doesn’t remember the journey. Time can be tricky like that sometimes.

The whole venue is empty, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s void of people. There is no one around, granted, but there’s so much more to the world; the air is so calm, neither cold nor humid, and the only sound Kravitz can hear is that of his own soul humming. The bugs are quiet, the birds make no sound, and the usual sounds of hoofbeats on the dirt floor are gone. There are no lights on in the windows of brick huts. 

In this quiet, Kravitz can think about what he needs to. No one will bother him.

But-- and perhaps he’s picked up this mortal, unnecessary and somewhat debilitating trait from spending so much time around Lup-- he doesn’t  _ want _ to think.

Years ago, what had just occurred less than an hour ago would have been wonderful news to him. He could have looked at things selfishly and objectively, as all demons are  _ supposed _ to do, and he could have talked to Lup. It certainly would have made things easier. And, really, there’s nothing stopping him from going back and doing just that-- talking to Lup and sorting things out and…

And just leaving.

Ending the contract because her goal and statement is done.

 

“So why are you here?”

Taako takes another bite of the apple she gave him, chewing slowly and wiping his chin afterwards. Lup almost feels bad that she’s watching him like a hawk-- he savors  _ every bite _ \-- but she can’t help herself. She still can’t fathom that he’s even really  _ there _ . Sitting before her like he just  _ can _ sit in front of her.

“Sazed… wants to travel,” he replies. Taako doesn’t look her in the eyes too often. Each answer is a process to get out. Lup’s not sure why-- he could ask her any single thing that has happened over the past years and she’d tell him in a heartbeat. “He got bored of-- um-- private shows, I guess. Wanted to be famous.” Taako sniffs, looking to the door of the tent before adding, “It was never about the money. He’s got enough of it. He wants people to know who he is.”

Lup tries to catch Taako’s eye again. “...And who is he?”

 

Kravitz fills his lungs with the empty air and sighs.

Smoke unfurls from his chest and it’s cold, curling in front of his face.

He stands there for a while, just watching his artificial breath live in front of him. The stars are the only light tonight, but even without them Kravitz can see every crevice in every doorway of every house. If he tries hard enough, he can smell what was once cooking in someone’s oven and he can listen to laundry that was taken down hours ago rustle in the wind. It’s distracting to heighten his senses like that--to sit down and basically watch and listen to the past unfold around him. He can play it out like a story, piecing together fragments and pieces of senses.

But tonight it’s not enough, because tonight he needs to think and he needs to  _ decide _ .

Is he going to let  _ just _ ten years overwrite his nature? What he was  _ created _ to be?

He looks at his hands-- he looks at the black claws that are dull in the moonlight and he turns them over inspectingly. He is as old as time itself, created when the sun was crafted and  _ light _ graced the planets. And he was created with one purpose-- to  _ oppose _ . To torment for the sake of torment. Chaos for chaos’ sake.

Not that he remembers much from when he was “younger” anyway. The memories that do not retain to his current state of being-- ever since he was contracted by Lup-- are all but nonexistent. What is the use in remembering anything if he is to not be objective or biased? What is the use of remembering if he does not start or end? Those memories surely happened, but what does he care for them? 

What matters at the end of the day is his purpose, not his act.

So, by comparison, none of this  _ matters _ . Or it  _ shouldn’t _ , anyway.

Dark matter pools in his palms. It’s some sort of black magic disguised as smoke that no one could even see in the midnight darkness. It’s dark and it’s pure in its essence-- it’s  _ him _ , or what he can be simplified to.

Kravitz looks at this smog as it grows. It sucks up all light-- it’s part of a void, something much bigger than he’ll ever be but something that also makes up all of him. He doesn’t know where it came from, he doesn’t know where  _ he _ came from, and he’s never cared to know. One day he did not exist and then the next he  _ did _ . One day there was nothing and the next there was a purpose that was irrefutable and undeniable. 

He is a simple being. Smoke rises from his hands and not only does he breathe it in but he  _ absorbs  _ it, watching it seep into his chest and arms.

He is a simple being.

Lup and Taako are not simple beings.

 

“Sazed... it’s hard to explain,” Taako begins, looking at his feet and drawing circles in the sand with his nails. “I don’t really think he’s even told  _ me _ the full truth, honestly.”

“What did he tell you?” Lup presses, resisting the urge to move closer. Taako glances up quickly.

“He’s, like, sixth in line to some royal family or something. He gets money from them, and he’s got a-- well, he  _ had _ a nice house, I guess-- but he doesn’t have any sort of  _ status _ . Kinda one of those ‘lives in the shadow of his family’ type things. The reason we’re runnin’ around is… I guess he wants to make a name of himself. Build up an empire or whatever. Be somethin’ more.”

Lup almost scoffs, because the idea is almost as ridiculous as anything she’s ever heard. “He wants to make an empire  _ here? _ What does he think this all is, a  _ job _ ?”

Taako shrugs, “Well, how would he know? Neither of us-- we-- he hasn’t even ever  _ been _ to a show. We stumbled here on accident. We’ve just… heard stuff. About the Vagabonds, anyway.”

“Well, what--”

“That you’re all  _ vagrants _ ,” Taako says, finally looking at her, something hard in his eyes. “Lawless and unsophisticated and without  _ structure _ . You’ve got talent but no way to go up.”

For some reason, his words make her stop. Something in his stare, something in the way he phrased it-- something that boils something rotten in her stomach. Her next words come hesitantly. “We… the Vagabonds don’t  _ want _ to go ‘up’. That’s the whole  _ point. _ ”

“So? How is anyone supposed to know that? Not everyone strives to live in  _ dirt  _ with a bunch of thieves and liars, Lup.”

Taako looks at her with a calculating look but she can’t say anything back. It’s shock and indignancy and mostly confusion that keeps her quiet. She didn’t expect him to be so… disapproving of it all, in honesty. They had lived some of their life without a home or even a tent; this is an  _ improvement _ to that. This is luxury. This is a  _ home _ \-- and maybe that’s what really offsets her about his words. 

However many people come and go, however awful the camps’ location may be, however low the pay grade is-- this is her home. These people, even the ones she barely knows, are almost like her family. She’d trust any of these people with her life, even though she probably  _ shouldn’t _ . 

And Taako doesn’t… he doesn’t get that. She has to reassure herself that while she did expect him to be more accepting, he just doesn’t  _ know _ , really.

But she’ll show him.

 

Standing in that comfortable darkness, Kravitz makes a decision.

It’s not the right one, but he chooses it nonetheless.

In one moment he is dispersed, he is nothing but the night, nothing but the darkness that runs in his veins that fill the emptiness in the air with a wave of heat that sends shivers down the spines of the people asleep and oblivious to the world around them. He is everywhere, nowhere, in the inbetween and in the mortal realm, his feet on the ground and his soul everywhere else. 

Kravitz is whole, without pain and without peace and without any connection to  _ anything _ . 

Kravitz is free.

Kravitz reassembles and quietly starts to walk back home.

 

“Taako, that’s not…” She doesn’t know how to tell him, really. How can she explain Magnus and all the birthday presents he’s gotten her? How can she explain Julia and her empowering energy, or Lucretia and her endless wisdom? They’ve been her family without Taako and underlying  _ everything _ that has happened since she saw him, she’s felt a  _ need _ to show him everything. To have him  _ with _ her. “We’re not bad people, Taako.”

“Everyone thinks you are,” Taako says with a shrug. He doesn’t look at her. “I’m glad you’re happy here, I am, but…  Who was that sitting next to you, Lup? And don’t you  _ dare  _ lie to me.”


	16. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after a FULL ASS MONTH i am back! sorta! things have been kinda rough and kinda shitty and honestly i'm not really.... feelin this chapter. at all. but ive had it drafted for a while and i just want to put SOMETHING out there to hopefully get me out of this rut. either way, thank you to everyone who's commented, i love you so so so much and your comments are what pushed me to update this. i'm sorry i can no longer really get myself to reply to comments, but just know i appreciate them so much and i appreciate YOU so much. love y'all, hopefully another chapter will be up soon!

Kravitz runs into Taako on his way back to the tent.

Literally.

Taako stumbles back and Kravitz instinctively reaches an arm out to steady him. In the dim light Kravitz had to look at Taako twice before realizing he isn’t Lup. His hand withdraws, lingering for only a moment. The stars are still bright in the sky and the tent behind Taako is still illuminated from the inside.

Taako looks up at Kravitz in surprise and the two of them just stand there, not sure what to say to one another. Taako doesn’t even breathe. There are tears in his eyes, still dripping down his face slowly. 

Something feels wrong and off, and Kravitz knows this even aside from the tears.

“Taako…” Kravitz starts, quietly-- he tells himself it’s because everyone is asleep, but for the first time in his life he feels something stuck in the back of his throat. Worry, perhaps, though he’s felt that before. Maybe it’s worry for someone he doesn’t know that makes it hard to breathe. “Are you okay?”

Taako blinks rapidly a few times, his eyes finally starting to focus. They’re red-rimmed and puffy, and Kravitz wonders if Lup’s are the same. “I…”

Kravitz can see a silhouette behind Taako; someone he can only assume to be Lup is sitting on the floor of the tent. She’s not moving and not making any sound. Kravitz has no idea what had happened, but he takes a small victory in realizing that he can still feel her emotions. It’s not as sharp as before, but they’re still there. Her heart stills beats in his ears. Their bond is not gone.

But Lup radiates a poised, tense sadness. 

“You’re Kravitz,” Taako finally says, and Kravitz looks back to him. The elf almost looks afraid. His lips are quivering slightly and Kravitz sees his hands shake for just a moment before he shoves them in his pockets. “The demon.”

It’s a fact, not really a subjective statement, but Taako says it as such. It’s a whisper, thin and wavering in the moonlight’s glare. For some reason, Kravitz feels the need to contradict him, even though he can’t-- no, he’s not a demon. He’s harmless, he swears-- he buries his nails into his palms to hide them but it’s not really of any use. It’s this urge to be  _ liked _ that Kravitz feels, which is  _ definitely _ a first-- he tells himself it’s residue from Lup’s anxieties. It’s all it can be. 

After all, he’s heard about Taako for  _ years _ . It’s an odd thing-- that they’ve never met before, but Kravitz knows  _ so much _ . He knows Taako prefers savory food over sweet, and that he’s quick to scare but hides it well, and he has always been vain about his hair and not much else. He knows Taako has a good sense of humor (Lup says he’s funnier than she is) and that he used to entertain her with stories for hours on end during exceptionally dark nights. He’s standoffish to strangers, but Lup says that he really has a heart of gold. She’d sung praises about him for years.

So Kravitz clears his throat. Straightens a bit. “Yes. And you’re Taako.”

He almost holds out his hand and he can almost remember so many years ago, shaking the hand of a lonely child. Lup had been defiant and shaking--  but there’s none of that in Taako’s eyes tonight. There’s no fight. No growl, no bite, no venom. So Kravitz does not hold out his hand, and Taako does not shake it.

Kravitz knows there’s something wrong--  _ obviously _ there’s something wrong. Lup feels distraught and Taako is already leaving the tent. Kravitz had expected them to talk until the early morning-- he thought he would have to separate them come daylight so Sazed wouldn’t find anything out. This was not part of the plan.

But he can’t just  _ ask _ Taako. In the back of his mind he knows it’s not really his  _ business _ to ask.

However, he also knows that  _ none _ of this is really his business anymore, whether or not any of them but him knows. It’s improper to really talk to Taako and ask him what’s wrong, but if nothing’s  _ proper _ anymore anyway, what does it matter? (Is he overthinking this? He’s not one to overthink, usually, but he wants to be careful-- this  _ matters _ to him. Lup-- and he supposes, by extension, Taako-- matter to him. They won’t later, in centuries’ time, but for now? He wants to be careful.)

“Taako, do--” 

He prepares to be swept up in a few stuttered excuses. Mortals do that-- they never want to  _ talk _ . Lup had never actually even told him the full story of how her and her twin had gotten separated. He had to gather bits and pieces over the years and string the story along himself. He had gotten the gist, but whenever he asked for details (perhaps he hadn’t asked in the  _ kindest _ or most  _ sensitive _ ways at first) he was met with silence and a glare (she had never grown out of that). So Kravitz prepares to be met with the same stubbornness, the same avoidance; he may never know what Taako is  _ really _ upset about, and he just--

“You’re Lup’s, aren’t you?”

\--Ah. 

Kravitz smiles. Well. That just saved him a lot of time.

“Is that what she told you?” Kravitz asks softly. He wills himself to stop smiling. but it’s so ironic that it’s almost funny to him. This isn’t the first time this dilemma has come to his attention before. It hasn’t been lost to him that the very thing that Lup fears has become a part of her-- in a much more “tame” way, of course, but nonetheless. To an outsider? To  _ Taako _ ? Of course this is wrong. Of course Taako pities him and resents Lup. Kravitz doesn’t expect he’s had many interactions with demons lately-- he wouldn’t know that it’s really not  _ that _ morally objective of a mortal to summon and keep a demon. Demons typically don’t do  _ feelings _ . They might be annoyed, but what’s a few years of servitude to them besides a slight annoyance?

(But there’s another part of this situation that almost makes Kravitz smile, and it’s that  _ Taako pities him _ . Kravitz has never had someone  _ pity _ him before.

It makes him uncomfortable and he doesn’t know why.)

“No,” Taako says, glancing away and sniffling. He wipes at his nose with his sleeve before quickly shoving his hand back into his pocket. He almost looks like he wants to be  _ mad _ at the situation, and Kravitz can’t really blame him. “But… but it’s  _ true _ , anyway.”

“Care to tell me what she told you?” Kravitz crosses his arms, smiling again but trying to not show his fangs. Something about Taako before him, pitying him and being  _ angry _ for him… it’s a little endearing, if not unnerving. Taako knows so little about the situation, and at this point so does Lup, but  _ still _ he’ll willing to feel for this demon that he doesn’t even know. It takes a very odd kind of person to do that. “I would have assumed that you two would be talking for the next few years or so.”

“Yeah, well, me too, bucko,” Taako snaps, his long ears pressed flat against his skull. “But I guess…”

It’s almost like Taako remembers something in that moment-- his eyes widen and fly up to meet Kravitz’s and he gasps, ears twitching. “I-- I’m sorry, I  _ totally _ \-- are you allowed--?”

Taako waves his hand vaguely, glancing back towards the tent. Kravitz has no idea what he’s talking about-- and he’s never been called  _ bucko _ before. It’s a new one for sure.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kravitz manages to get out. He tries to come back from the  _ bucko _ line of thought. “But I can assure you that I’m allowed to do whatever I please.”

That seems to relax Taako, just a bit. “I-- That’s what Lup told me,” he says, “But I didn’t know if…”

Kravitz shakes his head. It’s… distressing, to say the least, to hear Taako talk like this. Like he doesn’t trust his sister. “Taako, why would she lie?”

Taako huffs out a shaking laugh. There’s one thing that Kravitz notices about Taako that he can’t quite get around-- Taako seems to be running purely on spite for the world. He’s aloof and he’s quiet, and that’s what Kravitz has learned from Lup, but what Kravitz notices  _ on his own _ is that the world has not yet been so kind to Taako. His soul seems to closed, so shut off and shut down to whatever it sees. Kravitz isn’t sure what Taako had wanted to see from Lup, or if he had really wanted to see anything at all, but whatever he so feared he seemed to have gotten. “Why  _ wouldn’t _ she?”

“I think we both know she--”

“And  _ I _ think you don’t know shit,” Taako retorts. “No offense, but  _ how _ long have you known Lup?” 

Kravitz has to physically bite his tongue.  _ Longer than you _ . “I have been with her for a while.”

“Yeah? And you think she’d tell you everything?” Taako laughs again and it only strikes Kravitz then that this is a defense mechanism. Taako’s angry at him because it’s probably easier than being angry at Lup-- after all, how would he, realistically, ever know what had happened while he was gone? Why should he be able to know what she was like? “I’m her  _ brother _ , and after all this time I thought she’d  be above-- after  _ all  _ that we’ve been through-- she thinks it’s-- that this is _ okay _ . It’s  _ not _ .”

“Just because you’re her brother…. Taako, that doesn’t mean  _ anything _ .” Technically every single demon that existed could be counted as Kravitz’s brother, but to hell if Kravitz even knew their names or cared enough to find out. Blood was never thicker than water-- it was a lie created by the gods. Atrocities were created in the name of “brotherhood”, but the idea of having someone by your side through whatever comes was nothing short of mead to the young mortals. Kravitz had always known better. “Even if you’re twins.”

“Yeah, but that’s not-- y’know what? Nevermind,” Taako spits, turning on his heels. “It’s not your business. You wouldn’t get it.”

“I’d understand a lot of things, if you’d give me a chance.”

 

The chance comes just an hour later, after Taako had stormed off and Lup had told Kravitz in a quiet, pleading voice, that she needed to be alone.

It comes precisely when Kravitz wanders away from the camp into the woods, lost in his own thoughts yet thinking of really nothing at all. There was entirely too much to do and wonder about, and it all revolved around Taako, whom had given Kravitz the impression that he didn’t want to be thought about. So Kravitz had done what had always been his nature-- he had wandered. Had let himself go to the shadows, stepping over branches and twigs and not minding too much if he made noise. He was the only deadly thing in the woods and no amount of sound could have changed that.

He had heard echos after a while-- twigs snapping and leaves rustling. Something was following him and trying to be quiet while doing so. Kravitz had let whatever it was stumble-- he knew it’d catch him, and he knew it posed no threat. So he had set himself up, starting a fire with some old magic he’d almost forgotten, and he had waited.

Kravitz waited for the chance without knowing he was doing so, and it had come in the form of a hand on his shoulder and a quiet voice whispering that he could tell  _ no one _ .


	17. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I THINK I UPDATED IN LESS THAN A MONTH HALLELUJAH

The story starts as such: with two orphaned children in a brothel full of sealed lips.

The name of the brothel no longer matters; it’s long since become ruins, much like the town it used to reside in. But when it was alive, bearing a heartbeat that pulsed every twelve hours with the rise and fall of the moon, it thrived like no other building. There was no shortage of different people that came to the brothel; politicians, wealthy, poor, welders, wizards, or adventurers. There was a price for everyone and a promise of secrecy and safety. You entered the brothel with however many coins you could shell out for at least a smile and you left whenever the world called you back. The only memory that resided of the brothel belonged solely to the customer.

The brothel was simultaneously the most popular and the most secretive place in the town. There was no trace of it, though everyone knew its name. The workers of the brothel lived there, in their small rooms that they had to use for a bedroom and a studio. There was a small common room upstairs, with a tiny kitchen and bathroom, but no place to  _ be _ . As a result, those who lived there became  _ part _ of that building-- no patron wanted to see personal letters or drawings or decorations. The workers were shells; they had no personality, no background, no story to them. Most of them preferred life this way.

They had lived their life and that life was over when they started working for the brothel. They had reached the first phase of the afterlife-- they had rid themselves of family and friends and connections. They would fade within those walls, with any trace of them erased long ago.

Apart from selling your soul, there was another price to working in the brothel. 

There was one doctor that would come once a month for just ten gold coins. Depending on how many new hires there were, sometimes he’d only be there for a night. Sometimes for a week. Sometimes he wouldn’t even have to come at all, but they paid him just to keep his mouth closed. But after he worked on one hire, he would never have to see them again.

But there was one just month, just one worker, that he missed.

Quite on purpose, as well, though neither of them truly minded.

He fooled the worker on purpose, though she was rather smart and saw through his plan immediately. She didn’t mind-- she, like so many others, had lost some part of herself in the brothel. Some part that commanded common sense, that lead her to follow her heart rather than her head. She was smarter than he was-- she pulled him aside one afternoon and told him such.

She told him that she knew men like him. She said that just this one time, she didn’t mind.

And so they fell in love.

Many, many years ago she had forgotten the concept. She had left it in the outside world; love was meant for two people, so specifically intertwined by choice. Love was not meant for people like her, who’d sell the concept of such a precious thing for only a few coins. 

She knew the doctor did not love her. She’d played the cards of faux love for a very, very long time. She knew that what she and the doctor whispered between the sheets were completely fake and meaningless. But she had tasted, just for a moment, what she had lost in the world; even though her words were fake, whenever they crossed her lips they made her feel  _ real _ . And that feeling, just having that outside link, however small it may have been, was more than addicting.

So they fell in love. Or, rather, they felt what  _ they _ could only describe as love.

And so, within this love, the doctor could not bring himself to mutilate her as he did with all the other women. He used her as she was intended to be used; he knew, as well as she did, that things were not going to end well. But he was addicted as well, in his own way. She was his secret, and he hers, and he was going to keep the rouse going so long as the business paid well. She was driven by intoxication, and he by greed, and together they would drag each other down into the dirt and gravel.

The decline started after nine months and two new lifetimes of heartbeats. 

By that time, it was obvious she had been pregnant, and it had been speculated that, one way or another, it was the doctor’s fault. Month after month he’d come to perform these sterilizations, and yet he missed her again and again? Either it was personal or money-driven that he was so ignorant-- either way, it was his fault. His blame.

The woman tried. Again and again she begged with the man-- he was the father and these children needed a  _ family _ , they needed stability and a mother who did not work in a brothel, and they needed  _ love _ . Slowly she had gotten more and more attached to feeling alive and she was desperate to be free again. The disgusted emotions she suppressed at her life had flooded in with the positive emotions she felt with the doctor, and in the end that’s what kept her on her knees. She did not care about the children’s future-- were she a farmer, or even a peasant, she would have kicked him to the curb and kept the children to raise on her own. But she knew that there was no place for children in a brothel, and that is what kept her begging. That is the leverage that she used.

But the doctor didn’t care for commitment any more than he cared for children.

However, when the children were born, the brothel knew the doctor was to blame, and therefore the doctor was to take his comeuppance. He was to take the child, for he was responsible for it and obviously the mother could not care for it.

He did not expect twins. No one did. 

But he really didn’t mind.

The doctor, not a mere week after ripping the screaming children from their mother’s arms, deposited them at a local orphanage a few towns over and never looked back. He never saw his children again, nor did he ever see their mother. He took the money he had collected and disappeared back into the world, leaving her to rot and stab her own heart until she no longer felt again. She has lost not one love but three, and the pain was too much for her. This story does not end with her-- she is just as gone as the doctor, perhaps withered or perhaps dead. 

Her fate does not matter, though. Not to the children.

The children, two identical boys, were raised in the local orphanage until they were five. They were social enough, and they played as children and laughed as children and ran as children, but there was some sort of bond between them that no one could get through. Maybe it was somehow passed down from their mother-- the inability to find real love in the world. They took comfort in each other, and they played and made friends as normal, but  _ love _ was just a precious thing they could not stand to give out so easily.

They had never known the price at which they would give away their love for. They didn’t really think about it, seeing as they were just kids, but they had learned very quickly to find the importance in money.

They discovered the price (they had so previously deemed unimportant) one night, after a man in an expensive fur coat had walked into the orphanage. The price was five gold coins, and an extra two silver because they had hair that was uncut.

The man, as far as being the type of man who would buy two children to be trained as servants and slaves, was somehow not the most vile man the two would run into.

The twins quickly discovered that they were not, in fact, the only children of the house; coincidentally, the man had twins of his own-- one boy and one girl, with sophisticated names of royalty. The child servants were to serve them and care for them, though the unnatural situation came to the servant’s thoughts as unfair; at the orphanage, these children were sold for a higher price. The man’s children were also elves, but they had dark, cut hair. They were obviously not related to the man who called them his children, yet they were treated with more respect than a peasant treated a golden coin. The two servant children did not understand, nor would they ever, but understanding was not part of their job.

They shadowed these royal children for a few years, growing adjacent to them but seemingly in this upside-down, parallel world. These royal children grew to be beautiful and elegant, yet also extremely clever and malicious-- though so did the servant twins. The royal children studied excessively, being particularly skilled in magic-- though the servant twins studied and were gifted as well.

However, when the royal children were caught doing something naughty, be it breaking a plate or killing a bird, they were given a few select words.

When the servant children were caught doing something naughty, they were beaten black and blue.

When the royal children discovered their magical skills, they were given the finest books and the most polished wands.

When the servant children discovered their magical skills, they were given one hour in the middle of the night to sneak from their room, steal the other children's’ books, and memorize them as quickly as they could in that hour before returning them.

Though the royal children found fun in tormenting the servant children, the servant children found themselves not particularly minding the life they lead. They had no memories of their mother or father, or really most of their time in the orphanage. They were told to clean and cook, mostly, and they were allowed to talk so long as they got the work done within the day. They had little physical possessions other than clothes, but that didn’t bother them. They only needed each other, the chats and the love they’d exchange while cooking on step-stools in the kitchen. So long as they had each other, the world kept moving; things were never too bad or harsh, because at the end of the day they knew they were safe. The mansion they worked in became their home-- or, rather, their definition of a home. They saw comfort in the work and comfort in the silence and comfort in the beatings and sneers. They found home in each other-- wherever one was, be it heaven or hell, was the other’s home.

However, they could not ignore what surrounded them for very long. The man with the fur coat grew older, and in some aspects it was nice. He became a little more delusional and friendly towards the servant children and the beatings nearly ceased. He allowed them some few coins to buy fresh bread and go into town. When he caught the children playing with matches, all he did was take the matches away without a word.

Though in his old age he failed to see the rein he gave to his children.

Their taunts and jeers became insults meant to cut deep. Their pranks became dangerous, then harmful. Shoulder checks in the hallway became razors hidden in bath towels. Slaps on the wrist became punches, then swipes.

The rich children became violent. Cruel and twisted. They separated their servants for days, throwing them in different cellars to rot in the darkness until they screamed themselves raw. They starved them until they were just bones, then threw them a single piece of stale bread, only enough for one child. They locked them inside a room with the freedom’s price being blood on someone’s hands.

They didn’t thrive from the violence. They thrived from the sickness of their own minds, the cruelty and manipulation and games they’d play with those twins, all while their father grew older and more frail.

There had only been on time in the servant twin’s life that they had ever been separated. It would be the first and the last time.

Through the darkness of the rich children’s minds, the servant children still kept one light; each other. They whispered, no longer allowed to jovially chat in the kitchens, but what they lacked in volume they made up for in words. More and more they withdrew into each other, telling secrets before they even knew they were secrets and telling parts of themselves they had never noticed before then.

One of the twins in particular was changing in a way that the other was not. 

He was growing.

Then, after a while, she had grown.

But the twins kept this a secret from the house for as long as they could, just like the magic that pulsed beneath their fingertips. Every night they worked a little more on her body, using magic that sometimes backfired and that they’d have to hastily fix under the moonlight. A rounder face. Longer eyelashes. Longer fingers. Small things that they prayed the rich children would not be able to discover, should they do them in a long time frame.

It worked. 

Until, one day, it did not.

The servant boy had been out running errands, under the impression that his sister was behaving herself and doing her own chores.

The story becomes muddled here.

The servant boy had come home to find his sister in the cellar, for one of the rich children was dead.

It looked very much like an accident, and perhaps it was, so that was what the authorities called it. Some sort of freak accident, they said, wherein he must have tripped and fallen over the balcony. A freak accident where, maybe, he accidentally frightened himself by brushing against the flame of the candlestick on the table-- for the clothes on his bruised body were singed. 

The other rich child did not say a word. She would hardly speak again.

The old man in the fur coat was devastated, but he blamed no one. He bought a smaller house, deep in the countryside, and used an extravagant amount of money to fashion a red coffin for his son. 

The servant girl did not tell her brother what had happened-- that is, assuming that she knew.

The old man, a month after his son’s death, sold the servant children in an auction. He did not cry. He did not lament. Neither did the children.

The children hardened. Grew stronger and fed off of each other even more. They caused mayhem, unaltered by any punishment. From household to household they were sold; to the rich, the poor, the workers, and the royal. They were sold to malicious people and to gentle people, to kind and to vile, but they stayed the same. They leaned against doors to learn of any magic they could, finding more and more joy in pulling pranks that could not be traced back to anything physical. They talked to each other far too much and withdrew into their own world, oblivious to anything that did not concern them. In every house the girl changed more and more-- she never entered and left a house the same way, and the joy that she felt from this radiated to her brother as well.

At night, they would sneak their way out of the house to share stories with the caravans around the town. They didn’t make friends, but they made connections and they learned stories and saw what the world could be.

In this game of never-ending chess, they were happy. They were  _ safe _ .

But there came a time where they wanted more. 

They wanted more power. More magic. More knowledge-- above all else, they wanted to  _ learn _ . To show off and to play for each other whatever they could get their hands on, like the people in the caravan did for the whole town. And they couldn’t do this when their days were constantly full of chores and beatings and duties.

Under the covers, whispered from ear to ear, were plans of escaping the system.

They knew, or they thought they knew, that it was all useless. They’d tried before, just to see if they could, and it was nearly impossible. It wasn’t that they feared the end result-- no where was scary if they had each other-- but rather the process.

They couldn’t be separated. The thought of being alone always stopped their plans, every single time. It was never anything else.

From here on out, unfortunately, the story becomes predictable.

They grew to be too much to handle.

Together they became nearly uncontrollable, and so they were split in half.

The girl went to a wizard’s home. The boy went to a royal.

The rest of the story is boring-- up until this very moment. 

For there was one thing that the twins believed, that carried them through their time apart. One thing that kept them almost believing that the other was safe. Perhaps karma had seen enough and would decide to loosen its grip on them. Perhaps the other was in a much better place, leading a much better life. Maybe they had found love. Maybe they had made friends and a family. Maybe they were free. 

The twins had believed that bad things did not happen to good people, but they had failed to see that they were not particularly good people.


End file.
